D.K. Shivakumar arrested in money laundering case; Congress alleges 'vendetta politics'

In a major setback to the Karnataka Congress, its chief troubleshooter D.K. Shivakumar was arrested on Tuesday by the Enforcement Directorate in a money-laundering case. He was arrested after being questioned for four days by the agency in its Delhi office.

The ED had grilled Shivakumar for over four hours on Friday and about eight hours on Saturday as part of the probe. His statement was recorded on Monday, too.

ED officials said Shivakumar was arrested under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). He will be produced before a court in Delhi on Wednesday by the agency for seeking his custody.

Shivakumar, the sitting MLA from Kanakapura seat, landed in Delhi on Friday to appear before the ED after the Karnataka High Court on Thursday dismissed his petition challenging the summons issued to him by the agency.

'Politically motivated'

Soon after his arrest, the Congress leader tweeted saying the I-T and ED cases against him were politically motivated and that he was a victim of BJP's “politics of vengeance and vendetta”.

“I congratulate my BJP friends for finally being successful in their mission of arresting me,” he said, taking a sarcastic jibe at the ruling party.

Earlier also, Shivakumar had denied any wrongdoing and said that his being "instrumental" in ensuring safe stay of Gujarat Congress MLAs in a Karnataka resort during the Rajya Sabha polls in 2017, amid allegations that the BJP was trying to poach them, was the reason for the I-T searches and subsequent ED action against him.

Vendetta politics, says Congress

The Congress party strongly condemned the arrest of Shivakumar and called it another attempt of the Narendra Modi government to distract the public from the “sorry state of the economy”.

“We strongly condemn the high-handed tactics and vendetta politics being deployed against the Congress leaders. The arrest of Shri D.K. Shivakumar

 is yet another attempt by the govt to distract the public from their failed policies and the sorry state of the economy,” the party tweeted.

JD(S) leader and former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy also targetted the BJP over the arrest of Shivakumar. Kumaraswamy led the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in the state until over a dozen MLAs quit and joined the BJP, paving way for the saffron party to form the government.

“After days of interrogation, without allowing even a day's break for the festival, ED now cites non-cooperation to arrest Shivakumar,” the JD(S) leader said in a tweet, and added that the ruling party was using investigation agencies to oppress those opposition leaders who they thought were a threat to their interests.

The central agency had in September last year registered a money laundering case against Shivakumar, Haumanthaiah, an employee at Karnataka Bhavan in New Delhi, and others.

The ED case has been filed based on a charge sheet (prosecution complaint) filed by the Income Tax Department against him last year before a special court in Bengaluru on charges of alleged tax evasion and hawala transactions worth crores.

The I-T department has accused Shivakumar and his associate S.K. Sharma of transporting huge amount of unaccounted cash on a regular basis through 'hawala' channels with the help of three other accused.