3-fold jump in cash, jewellery seizure

New Delhi: With Karnataka gearing up for Assembly elections, the Election Commission (EC) on Monday said that cash and jewellery seizure by the income-tax department has gone up three times to about Rs 25 crore in the state as compared to the last elections.

EC said that in Karnataka, state election machinery and IT department have stepped up their action against misuse of money in election and for the first time, teams with statutory powers and sufficient resources have been posted in each district.

“Total cash seizure as on today is Rs 19.69 crores and the unexplained jewellery of value Rs 4.81 crores has been made by the investigation wing of income-tax department in Karnataka after the start of the assembly election related surveillance,” said EC.

In 2013, Karnataka state Assembly elections, the total seizure made in the entire campaign period was only Rs 4.97 crore cash and Rs 3.41 crore worth of jewellery.

“It has been found that the bulk of cash seized during operations in the present assembly elections is has been meant for distribution,” said EC.  

The investigation wing has been doing intensive surveillance and monitoring activities in the state.

EC said that based on the intelligence, search and seizure operations were conducted on several government contractors between the 24th and 26th of April 18 in Mysore. This resulted in a seizure of unaccounted cash of Rs 6.76 crore from four such contractors in the Mysore area.