Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sudhanshu Mittal, who allegedly bagged contracts in the Commonwealth Games organising committee's overlays worth Rs 230 crore, will appear before Income Tax authorities on Friday.
Denying that his company got contracts worth Rs 230 crore, Mittal told rediff.com over phone: "I have to meet IT people on Friday. It is wrong to say that I got contracts of Rs 230 crore. I only got contracts worth Rs 29 lakh."
Mittal, a director in Deepali Designs, and his consortium supplied logistics and support for events in the CWG.
The BJP, meanwhile, continues to distance itself from Mittal.
A top party official, on conditions of anonymity, claimed: "For Sudhanshu, a Rs 29 lakh contract is like putting a lollypop before the elephant. Isse uska kya hoga jo rojana crore main khelta hai (This is no big deal for him; He plays in crores daily)."
A couple of days back, income tax sleuths had raided his office and residence in Delhi and also conducted raids in Chandigarh and Ludhiana to allegedly unearth information on the kickbacks that he paid to CWG organising committee officials for bagging contracts.
Tax authorities also questioned his wife about the wealth that he had accumulated in last one-and-a-half decades.
Meanwhile, organising committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi sprang a surprise when he asked the Central Vigilance Commission to pay Rs 40 crore per month to the committee for retaining samples of goods used during the sporting event.
A not-so-amused senior CVC official told rediff.com: "The CVC works on a shoe-string budget and is no way obliged to pay any money, as the deals struck with various companies and particularly benami firms are still under investigation."
"It is surprising that instead of explaining his own conduct and how the deals were struck Kalmadi has chosen to brow-beat the commission by asking for the money. The commission has not taken it kindly," the official said.
