DK Shivakumar, the chief of Congress’ Karnataka unit, appeared before the Enforcement Directorate in Delhi on Monday for questioning in a case of allegedly possessing assets disproportionate to his income, reported PTI.

However, Congress MP and Shivakumar’s brother DK Suresh said that the Enforcement Directorate has not specified for what case the summons had been issued, reported ANI.

“Don’t know in what case they summoned,” Suresh told ANI. “Agencies are [being] misused...It’s political vendetta. We are six months away from polls in Karnataka. They [Bharatiya Janata Party] want to threaten [the] Opposition. ED office is BJP office.”

In 2020, the Central Bureau of Investigation had registered a case against Shivakumar for amassing assets worth Rs 74.93 crore, which were allegedly disproportionate to his income. The CBI had carried out searches at 14 locations on October 2020 during which the agency claimed to have recovered Rs 57 lakh in cash.

In a tweet last week, Shivakumar had questioned why he had been summoned at a time when the Congress was holding its Bharat Jodo Yatra and an Assembly session was underway in Karnataka.

The 3,570-kilometre long Bharat Jodo Yatra is led by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and is currently in Kerala. The march will enter Karnataka on October 1.

In 2019, the Enforcement Directorate had arrested Shivakumar in a money laundering case. The Congress leader had been booked by the central agency after a complaint was filed by the Income Tax department accusing him of evading tax and being involved in alleged hawala transactions worth crores of rupees.

The Delhi High Court had granted him bail in the case on October 23, 2019.