BENGALURU: There’s a strong feeling among Bengaluru’s business and political circles that at least some of VG Siddhartha’s problems stemmed from his close ties with DK Shivakumar , a powerful and resourceful Congress leader and protégé of Siddhartha’s father-in-law and former Karnataka chief minister SM Krishna who is now with the BJP.“Besides being Gowdas, they shared a strong personal bond,” said a person close to Siddhartha. According to the income-tax department, Shivakumar also had financial dealings and while Siddhartha’s debt problems weren’t a secret in India Inc, it was these dealings that landed the CCD founder under the I-T scanner and added to his woes.Opposition circles, of course, believe DKS was the primary target of the investigation. DKS, one of the richest politicians in Karnataka who is facing serious charges of corruption, had been in charge of keeping 44 Gujarat Congress MLAs cloistered at a resort near Bengaluru in 2017 till the cliff-hanger vote for Ahmed Patel ’s re-election to the Rajya Sabha . He was also at the centre of the operation that saw Congress-JD(S) pip BJP to office after the Karnataka assembly elections last year.Documents reveal that the investigation in Siddhartha’s case arose from the search of DKS’ financial consultant N Chandrashekhar Sukapuri. “It is normal for a search on one person leading to others. This was one such instance,” said BR Balakrishnan, principal chief commissioner (PCC) of income-tax, Karnataka-Goa region, who retired on Wednesday. In his purported ‘suicide note’ Siddhartha had spoken of a “lot of harassment by a former DG-IT”. Balakrishnan, who was director general of investigation before becoming PCC, defended the probe into Siddhartha’s business dealings and denied the charge of harassment .The searches on DKS and Sukapuri were conducted simultaneously on August 2, 2017 and I-T officials said these revealed alleged financial transactions of the Congress leader’s close kin with Café Coffee Day Ltd and M Soul Space.DK Suresh, Congress MP and Shivakumar’s brother, told TOI on Wednesday that the I-T department was in a tearing hurry to attach Siddhartha’s shares in Mindtree , in which he held 20.3% stake. “ This was uncalled for since the investigation was at a preliminary stage”, he said.“Rules specify that attachment of assets is not to be done at the preliminary stage. In Siddhartha’s case, the assignment is yet to be done and tax demand is yet to be determined, but I-T officials rushed to attach his assets at a time when he wanted to sell them to repay debts. This amounts to harassment,” said Suresh.While searches were conducted on 79 persons, an I-T prosecution case against DKS and other four persons is pending in court.“I-T officials were apparently trying to link Siddhartha with Shivakumar’s case, but the investigation is still at a preliminary stage and prosecution is yet to be initiated against Siddhartha,” said a senior advocate appearing for DKS.The I-T department provisionally attached 74.9 lakh shares of Mindtree in January and subsequently released them in lieu of another set of shares, but this is said to have delayed the sale of Siddhartha’s stake to L&T, creating a serious liquidity crunch.