New Delhi:
In what can be seen as an embarrassment for BJP President Nitin Gadkari, the Income Tax department today raided the office of Ideal Energy, where his son Nikhil is an Independent Director.
The I-T department also raided offices of Ideal Energy's parent company Ideal Road Builders in Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur.
The raids were triggered by the suspicion that the Ideal Group has been inflating bills for the last six years to declare lower profits.
The Ideal Group is owned by the Mhaiskar family and ranks among the biggest toll booth operators in the country.
It developed the Mumbai-Pune Express Highway and has recently bagged the contract for National Highway-8 between Ahmedabad and Vadodara.
The Mhaiskar family, based out of Mumbai, is known to be close to a Maharashtra Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader.
Meanwhile, Nitin Gadkari's office today released a press statement which said the news is misleading and that Nikhil Gadkari has no stakes in Ideal Energy at all.
"News items appearing in a section of media about the Income Tax raids on Indian Road Builders establishment near Nagpur and the association of Nikhil Gadkari son of Nitin Gadkari with the company are misleading. Nikhil Gadkari is an Independent Director of the company and he has no stakes in the company at all. There are absolutely no financial relations, whatsoever, of him or anyone associated with Mr. Nitin Gadkari or the BJP with the said company," the statement said.