A battery of 80 officials from the income tax department on Wednesday raided 17 properties (spread over 130 acres in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh) belonging to liquor baron Ponty Chadha who is considered close to UP CM Mayawati. 

The I-T department said the raids were conducted following alleged mispricing of huge liquor consignments and over suspicion that the margin was shared between Ponty and politicians in Uttar Pradesh.

Denying any political relevance of the action, the I-T department said that the liquor baron came under the scanner over his hawala dealings. It also said that money from unknown UAE sources are also reflected in the books of the Chadha group.

Chadha, 56, shot into limelight after Maywati handed over the entire distributorship of liquor in UP to him. However, he was also very close to former UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav during his rule in the state. The Chadha group flourished under Mulayam and started entered into real estate business only during his regime. When the regime changed, Chadha came into close circles of Mayawati. His proximity with excise minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui and former health minister (now an accused in the NRHM scam) Babu Singh Kushwaha was much talked about. It was his closeness with Siddiqui which gained him a free hand over the pricing of liquor. Similarly, Kushwaha favoured him by awarding all the major mining contracts to the Chadha group when he was mining minister in the state. Under Mayawati’s rule, Chadha not only started the famous chain of multiplexes, Waves, and dealings in distributorship of films, he was also awarded five sugar mills through duplicate tenders at throwaway prices. Later, a CAG audit report had questioned this deal.