The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption on Wednesday conducted raids on different properties linked with former Tamil Nadu minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader P Thangamani, reported PTI.

The raids are related to a first information report lodged by the anti-corruption agency against Thangamani, his wife T Santhi and son T Dharanidharan. The three have been charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

The agency has alleged that the accused persons acquired disproportionate assets worth about Rs 4.85 crore between May 2016 and March 2020. Thangamani was Tamil Nadu’s electricity minister between 2016 and 2021 under the then AIADMK government.

His son Dharanidharan’s firm Murugan Earth Movers was found to exist only on papers and was used as a cover for illegal assets acquired by Thangamani, the agency has alleged, according to The Hindu. The agency also alleged that Santhi helped Thangamani and Dharanidharan hide the alleged disproportionate assets by filing income tax returns even though she did not have any known source of income.

“It is further suspected that A-1 [Thangamani] and A-2 [Dharanidharan] have acquired many more assets which are disproportionate to his known sources of income and kept in the name of their in-laws, relatives and associates in various places in and around Tamil Nadu and outside,” the FIR alleged, according to the Deccan Herald.

The FIR also stated that the three accused have huge amount of the alleged disproportionate assets in cryptocurrencies.

On Wednesday, unidentified officials told The Hindu that the raids were being conducted at Dharanidharan’s Salem residence and also at the business premises related to the accused persons in 69 locations.

‘Political vendetta’, says AIADMK

Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami alleged that the raids were being carried out due to “political vendetta”.

In a statement, Palaniswami and chief coordinator of the AIADMK O Panneerselvam said that the Tamil Nadu government, led by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam was apprehensive about their party’s “growing resurgence” following the organisational polls held earlier in December.

“Unable to stand this and due to personal and political vendetta, the DVAC [Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption] has been unleashed on Thangamani,” the two leaders said in a joint statement.

Thangamani is the fifth former minister of the previous AIADMK government to face corruption allegations over disproportionate assets. The others are MR Vijayabhaskar, SP Velumani, KC Veeramani and C Vijayabaskar.