Bengaluru: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) raided 18 premises across Bengaluru, Belagavi and Goa, belonging to the Karnataka PWD Minister Satish Jarkiholi and his family members.
The pre-dawn raid that began at around 4 am is in progress and the ED sleuths are looking into the details of foreign investments made by the family members of Jarkiholi, including his daughter and Member of Parliament from Chikkodi -- Priyanka Jarkiholi.
Earlier on June 26, the ED had raided Manjunath, brother-in-law of Satish Jarkiholi and working as Joint Commissioner of Excise department at Belagavi, in connection with ₹ 178 crore irregularities in the Excise department. During the raid, the ED had confiscated hundreds of wine shop licenses, cash and foreign currencies.
However, this raid was not connected to the Excise department scam. According to ED officials, they were looking into the foreign investments made by Satish Jarkiholi's sister Lakshmi and her son Rahul, who have invested in iron ore mining in South Africa. Lakshmi is the wife of Manjunath. However, she and Rahul have no known source of income and are believed to have invested in a South Africa mining company, which has a South African national as the Director. The total investment is believed to be around ₹ 720 crore.
Meanwhile, Sathish Jarkiholi had recently met a delegation from Rwanda, who had come down scouting for investment and boosting tourism in Rwanda. During that meeting, there were proposals to invest in that country also.
The ED officials are checking all the documents pertaining to the foreign investments and are questioning Lakshmi and Rahul.
Meanwhile, the Congress in Karnataka has condemned the ED raid on Jarkiholi family saying that the raid was politically motivated.
Karnataka Home Minister Priyank Kharge said that the BJP in center knows that its cadre can not win in Karnataka and they were trying to face the 2028 elections through IT and ED.
Chief Minister D K Shivakumar said that he was not surprised by the ED raid. ``There will be more raids on our party leaders and I have asked them to be careful about such raids. They are not leaving even the dalit and backward class leaders, which shows how desperate they are. Whatever they do, we are coming back to power in 2028,'' he added.
