Karnataka minister Shivakumar appears before IT dept

Karnataka Power Minister D K Shivakumar today again appeared before the Income Tax Department which had conducted raids on his premises for alleged tax evasion.
"It is part of our duty. Everyday someone or the other issummoned. One among them today was D K Shivakumar," an IT official told PTI here.
Shivakumar had earlier appeared before the IT department officials on August 7 in connection with the raids conducted at various properties linked to him. The department had issued summons to him to appear beforeit for questioning.
In August, Income Tax officials had conducted searches at 10 locations in Bengaluru, Chennai and Delhi as a follow up to raids at various properties linked to Shivakumar.

The searches had kicked up a political row with the Congress alleging misuse of the I-T department by the central government to target their leaders.
The Congress had questioned the timing of IT searches andraid on properties of Shivakumar, who was overseeing the stay of 44 Congress MLAs from Gujarat at a resort on the city outskirts, ahead of Rajya Sabha polls in that state in which Congress President Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel was seeking re-election.
The Congress had accused the BJP of "stealing" its MLAs in Gujarat ahead of the polls and had flown them to Bengaluru to prevent it.