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The Income Tax department on Friday raided multiple premises linked to perfume traders and some others in Uttar Pradesh as part of a tax evasion investigation, official sources said.
They said the searches are being conducted in Kannauj, Kanpur, the national capital region, Surat, Mumbai and few other places, and about 20 premises are being covered.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) said through a post on its official Twitter handle that the premises of its MLC Pushpraj alias Pampi Jain in Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, have been raided.
Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is slated to hold a press conference at the SP office in Kannauj at 12.30 pm.
The party's Twitter post said the raids were launched by the 'Bharatiya Janata Party government' soon after Yadav announced the media conference there and dubbed the action as an 'open misuse of central agencies by a scared BJP'.
Yadav had recently launched a perfume called 'Samajwadi ittra' prepared by Jain in the run-up to the assembly polls in the state that are expected to be held early next year.
The department is searching multiple locations of some entities linked to the perfume trade and related businesses, the sources said.
The exact identities of those raided were not confirmed by authorities.
Sources said the action was launched after the department obtained details from the Goods and Service Tax (GST) department about possible income tax evasion by perfume business entities and others by allegedly claiming bogus input tax credit.
The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), an investigation agency under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), had recently carried out large-scale raids in Kanpur and Kannauj against Shikhar brand pan masala, a transporter and others and later arrested perfume trader Peeyush Jain, seized over Rs 197 crore cash apart from 26 kg gold and huge quantity of sandalwood oil.
The I-T department functions under the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).
The DGGI raids and recovery of cash have triggered a war of words between political parties in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during a rally in Kanpur on Tuesday, took a veiled dig at the Samajwadi Party over the cash seizure, saying the 'ittar' (perfume) of corruption that it had sprinkled all over Uttar Pradesh before 2017 is there for everyone to see.