Bharatiya Janta Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s ‘Hoonkar Rally’ in Patna on October 27 has come under the scanner of the income tax department in Bihar, officials said on Thursday.
The TDS (tax deduction at source) section of the department served notice on state BJP unit which is organising the rally, seeking details of the rally expenditure and of payments made to the contractors who facilitated the function.
Officials said that the department has also sought information about the expenditure on making the huge dais, lights and sound arrangement, hiring of trains, buses and other vehicles to ferry supporters to the rally, shelters erected for them and propaganda costs including money spent on posters, banners, flags, hoardings, etc.
“IT department is also conducting its own internal survey on the expenditure of the Modi’s rally to tally with the details provided by the BJP,” an official said.
The BJP has booked eleven special trains and nearly 5,000 buses to ferry workers and supporters to Patna for the rally.
Senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi had claimed that the rally would break all previous records as far as turn-out is concerned.
“If lakhs of people can turn up to hear Narendra Modi in Tamil
Nadu, Hyederabad and Rewari, where the party has few legislators, one can only imagine the biggest-ever turnout in Patna,” Sushil Modi said.
After Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar dumped BJP in June over the rise of Narendra Modi, it will be the first show of strength of the party in Bihar.
In Bihar, the IT department in the past had served notices to political parties, including Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal and the ruling Janata Dal-United, on rally expenditures.
Image: Supporters of Narendra Modi hold his mask during a rally in Ahmedabad
Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters
