BJP leader Sushil Vaswani under I-T lens after money row

Bhopal: Income-tax (IT) sleuths on Tuesday conducted searches at the residence and business establishments of senior BJP leader Sushil Vaswani, whose family also runs a cooperative bank in Madhya Pradesh.

Many influential people, including several senior ruling BJP leaders of MP, were said to be associated with the bank, currently headed by Mr Vaswani’s wife Kiran, IT sources told this newspaper.

IT sources said the searches were being conducted in his residences and business establishments, including three hotels, a car showroom, in and around Bhopal city.

The raids followed reports that the cooperative leader had allegedly laundered money after demonetisation. He however described as “rumours” the talks of laundering money through his cooperative bank.

The ruling party leader was said to be close to dissident BJP leader Babulal Gaur who has recently been removed from Shivaraj Singh Chouhan ministry on “age” ground. BJP sources said his family has been associated with RSS for three generations.

Mr Vaswani was chairman of Mahanagar Cooperative Bank for more than a decade. He was also chairman of the MP state housing cooperative federation for five years.