Karnataka Congress, BJP engage in war of words over CCD founder's letter

The letter, addressed to board members and employees of the coffee chain, alleged harassment by an income tax officer also expressing regret for not being able to create "the right profitable business".

The letter has been accessed by news agency ANI where he wrote: "Every financial transaction is my responsibility...the law should hold me & only me accountable."

"...I could not take any more pressure from one of the private equity partners forcing me to buy back shares... tremendous pressure from other lenders lead to me succumbing to the situation. There was a lot of harassment from the previous DG income tax... This was very unfair and has led to a serious liquidity crunch," the letter reportedly stated.

Reacting over the incident, the Karnataka Congress in its official Twitter handle, said, "#VGSiddhartha case is very unfortunate. Result of harassment by IT officials & decline of India’s entrepreneurial position turning virulent by the day, with Tax Terror & collapse of economy Companies which flourished under UPA have been shut down with many people being jobless."

In reply to the tweet, the BJP Karnataka posted: "Opportunistic political vultures flocking in full force totally disconnected from the emotions of family members of #VGSiddhartha. Investigation will reveal the facts behind this tragic incident. Until then respect the sentiment of masses & display some humanity if left with any."

Senior Congress leader and former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah alleged that "tax terrorism... ugly face of politically motivated institutions".

"The death of V G Siddhartha is both disturbing &mysterious. The reasons & the invisible hands that ended his life in this tragic way should be unearthed through impartial &fair investigation," the former chief minister wrote.

"The letter supposed to have written by VG Siddhartha few days before his death has discussed about tax terrorism, which is an ugly face of politically motivated institutions. What signals are we sending to the budding entrepreneurs without even an attempt to reform?"

The Income Tax Department on Tuesday denied charges of harassment.

It said the signature of Siddhartha, available with them, was different from that on the letter.

It also said Siddharatha had reportedly admitted holding stash income after raids on his offices in 2017.

Police recovered the body of businessman VG Siddhartha, who has been missing for the past two days, from the banks of the Netravathi River in Karnataka’s Mangaluru area on Wednesday early morning.

VG Siddhartha, the son-in-law of BJP leader SM Krishna, had gone missing on Monday.

A massive team of 100 firefighters, 100 policemen, 50 divers, 50 fishermen and 30 boats earlier conducted a search operation to find the businessman.

According to The News Minute report, a fisherman named Ritesh on a trawler boat found the body when he cast his net into the waters. Since the police had informed fishermen to keep an eye out, Ritesh suspected that the body could have been Siddhartha's and immediately informed a local resident (Ashwath), who subsequently intimidated the local corporator Diwakar Pandeshwar and then the trio informed the local police.