Income tax searches were conducted this morning at the house of Rajeev Rai, a spokesperson for the Samajwadi Party and a close adviser to former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. In Manipuri, a stronghold of the Yadav family, another Samajwadi Party leader was raided. 

Mr Rai’s residence in the Mau region of eastern Uttar Pradesh was visited by a team from the Income Tax Department from Varanasi this morning. 

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Mr Rai is the owner of a company that operates a number of educational institutes in Karnataka.

“I’ve no criminal background or black money. I help people and the government didn’t like it. This is a result of that. If you do anything, they’ll make a video, register an FIR, you’ll fight a case unnecessarily,” he said while talking to reporters at the gates of his residence earlier today. Mr Rai ran for the Ghosi constituency in the Lok Sabha in 2014.

“Rajeev Rai is the National Secretary and spokesperson of Samajwadi Party. He is credited with being the man behind the success of forming the 1st Samajwadi Party government in UP in 2012 and is the media face of the party,” his official website reads.

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Akhilesh Yadav’s aide has been raided in Mainpuri, the Yadav family’s stronghold. Manoj Yadav is the promoter of the RCL group of firms, which has been raided there. 

The raids take place only days before the state’s important assembly elections, as Mr Yadav attacks the BJP over projects just launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in UP. 

While he claims that all of these initiatives began under his reign, the BJP has dismissed this as a ploy to gain credit ahead of elections. 

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According to several commentators, Akhilesh Yadav has emerged as a major contender to the BJP in the next elections in Uttar Pradesh.