Following allegations that Amit Shah may have used a Gujarat property dealer as a front to disclose unaccounted Rs 13,860 crore, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today demanded a probe against the BJP President.
The property dealer, Mahesh Shah, disclosed the unaccounted money under a tax amnesty scheme.
"Amit shah should respond to Hardik Patel's allegations. Very serious! It should be investigated," the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader tweeted.
Mahesh Shah, a businessman from Gujarat, had made a surprising disclosure of Rs 13,860 crore two months ago.
However, the Finance Ministry on Sunday said that the amount declared by Mahesh Shah is most likely a "false" figure, and the I-T Department has already initiated an inquiry into the matter.
"There were two sets of declarations of high value, which were not taken on record, because these declarations were found to be suspicious in nature being filed by persons of small means," the Finance Ministry said in a release on Sunday.
"The department has since commenced inquiries against these declarants (Mahesh Shah and four others) to determine the intention behind these false declarations," it said.
Interestingly, Shah went missing on November 29, a day before he was supposed to pay the first instalment of tax levied on the hidden money.
He surfaced about a week later on Saturday at the ETV studio in Ahmedabad to claim that he was used as a front by some businessmen and politicians to declare the money.
Kejriwal's tweet came after Patel, a Patidar leader, alleged on Saturday that the main face behind Mahesh Shah, the man who disclosed the record amount under the government's income disclosure scheme, is "General Dyer" referring to the BJP President.
Patel, the founder of Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), who is leading an agitation for reservation in education and government jobs for his community, usually addresses Amit Shah as 'General Dyer'.
(With IANS inputs)
