The Income Tax Department is conducting raids at the premises of perfume baron and Samajwadi Party legislator Pushpraj Jain ‘Pampi’ in Uttar Pradesh’s Kannauj on Friday.

Searches are being carried out at around 50 locations in poll-bound UP, the national capital region (NCR), Mumbai and other places, based on specific inputs of tax evasion, sources said. The searches are mostly on those who are involved in business of perfumery.

Pushpraj Jain Pampi is a Member of Legislative Council from Samajwadi Party in UP. He had launched the ‘Samajwadi ittra’ or perfume last month in the presence of SP president Akhilesh Yadav ahead of the 2022 UP assembly elections.

Raids were also carried out early in the morning at Kannauj-based Mohammad Yaqub Perfume.

As news of the tax raids emerged, the Samajwadi Party hit out at the BJP and accused the ruling party of misusing central agencies in the run-up to the assembly polls.

“After the huge failure of last time, this time BJP’s ultimate ally IT has finally raided SP MLC Shri Pushpraj Jain and other perfume traders of Kannauj. Open misuse of central agencies by the scared BJP is common in UP elections.
The people are watching everything, they will answer with their vote,” the SP’s official Twitter handle posted.

Earlier this month, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) had raided Kanpur-based perfume trader Piyush Jain and recovered over 197 crore in cash, 23 kg gold and goods worth Rs 6 crore from premises linked to him in Kanpur and Kannauj.

BJP leaders including Home Minister Amit Shah and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had alleged during their rallies that Piyush Jain is linked to the Samajwadi Party, an allegation denied by party chief Akhilesh Yadav.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken a swipe at the SP over the I-T raids, stating that the party had sprinkled the “perfume of corruption” all over Uttar Pradesh when they were in power.

Interestingly, Pushpraj Jain and Piyush Jain are in same business and live in the same neighbourhood.