india

Updated: Aug 27, 2019 20:26 IST

After the Income-tax department on Tuesday attached ₹150 crore benami property of Haryana Congress leader Kuldeep Bishnoi, the Adampur MLA has cancelled all his political programmes and left for Delhi.

Requesting anonymity, a close friend of Bishnoi said, he had scheduled four-day political tours in Mandi Adampur area of Hisar district and was about to leave for a political programme but as the news of attaching property surfaced, he left for Delhi.

He said Bishnoi also told his workers that he will return to Adampur by Wednesday and continue his programmes.

In July, the Income-tax department officials had raided Bishnoi’s residences in Hisar, Delhi, Adampur of Hisar and Gurugram. The teams reached Hisar on July 23 and the raid continued till July 26. Kuldeep Bishnoi’s son Bhavya Bishnoi was taken to Delhi by the team.

A few days after the raids, Kuldeep Bishnoi with his family members gathered in Adampur area and told his followers that the recent raids were a conspiracy to tarnish his political image.

Stating the reports to be baseless and false, he refuted claims made by media reports of owning diamond mines in South Africa and said he has never been to South Africa.

Notably, Delhi Benami Prohibition Unit (BPU) of the Income Tax department has attached benami assets worth ₹150 crore. The Bristol Hotel in Haryana’s Gurugram, in which 34% shares are held in the name of a front company registered in British Virgin Island (BVI), and operated inter alia from United Arab Emirates (UAE). The asset is owned in the name of a company named Bright Star Hotel Private Limited.

Investigations revealed that the said entity and its assets are the benami assets of Kuldeep Bishnoi and his brother Chander Mohan, sons of former chief minister of Haryana Late Bhajan Lal. The provisional order of attachment was issued under Section 24(3) of the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988.

(With agency inputs)