By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR/ BERHAMPUR: In a major setback to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik , the Income Tax Department has served a notice on senior ruling BJD leader Bhaskar Rao , who is party’s Rajya Sabha candidate. Rao, presently working as Deputy Chairman, State Planning Board, enjoying a Cabinet Minister rank, evaded IT Tax amounting Rs 41 lakh. The Berhampur division of IT Department served the notice, sources said.
On May 30, (BJD)’s Rajya Sabha nominee N. Bhaskar Rao filed his nomination papers and turned out to be richest among all the Upper House members from the State with property worth Rs 29.84 crore.
Rao, along with former finance minister Prasanna Acharya and former school and mass education minister Bishnu Charan Das, had submitted their nomination papers. If their papers are found to be correct, all three will stand elected to the Upper House.
Rao, hails from southern district of Rayagada in Odisha , is an industrialist. His wife owns property worth of Rs 2.69 crore. His wife manages an agency that deals with trading of agricultural produce. The family owns a number of farms besides property at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
The family runs three companies, including one that deals with power production, collection and distribution of electricity. It also has interests in mining and real estate business. Rao has three cars – Toyota Fortuner, Ford Figo and Toyota Innova.
Three seats will fall vacant on July 1 this year when the tenure of Pyari Mohan Mohapatra, Baishnab Charan Parida and Bhupinder Singh end. All the three were elected on the ticket of BJD.
