Tamil Nadu Health Minister Dr. C Vijaya Baskar, actor Sarathkumar, MGR Medical University VC Dr Geetalakshmi and AIADMK politician Chitlapakkam Rajendran woke up to officers from the Income Tax department knocking on their doors on Friday morning, with the department conducting raids across several locations in the state.
According to reports, the income tax department is conducting raids on 35 places in Tamil Nadu including 20 places in Chennai and others in Pudukottai, Namakkal, Trichy and Coimbatore. Dr Vijaya Baskar is a native of Pudukottai.
Raids also happened at his official residence at Greenways Road, in Chennai.
Unconfirmed reports state that the raids could have also been conducted because of funding malpractices in the upcoming RK Nagar bypolls.
The raids, coming ahead of the crucial RK Nagar contest in which the OPS faction, Sasikala faction and DMK are taking each other head on, could become a talking point to dent the image of the Sasikala faction, to which Dr Vijaya Baskar belongs.
Dr Vijaya Baskar is one of the key members of the Sasikala faction and the TN state cabinet. He is known to be a Sasikala loyalist.
In February, when O Panneerselvam revolted against Sasikala, he had named Dr. Vijaya Baskar as one of the key conspirators and the one who had approached him with requests for Sasikala to become General Secretary of the party.
He told me that Chinnamma’s brother Dhivaharan had asked him to speak to me. He said that Dhivaharan was unhappy, and was planning to take Chinnamma back to their hometown. When I asked him why, he said Dhivaharan wanted Chinnamma to be the General Secretary of the party.O Panneerselvam said of Dr Vijay Baskar
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