Tarun Gogoi faked PAN details to ECI: Cobrapost

Investigative portal Cobrapost has come out with a list of 194 Indian politicians who had allegedly faked their PAN details to the Election Commission of India.

The list figures the names of former Assam Chief Ministers Tarun Gogoi and Bhumidhar Barman. They are among six former CMs. The reaction of Gogoi and Barman remains to be seen.

According to the portal, in most cases, PAN details were falsified by changing a digit. This was done to look it like the original one and also, perhaps, to defend it was a typo. This was apparently a trick to conceal the exponential rise in the politicians’ incomes and evade taxes.

Apart from Gogoi and Barman, some political biggies found on the wrong foot were former Bihar CM Jitan Ram Manjhi and former Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh.

The most curious case was that of five-time BJP MLA and four-time Minister Kishan Kapoor from Himachal. He furnished two different PANs in 2007 and 2013 Assembly elections. He was accused of fraud and criminal behaviour.

Of the 194 lawmakers, 72 are from the Congress and 41 from the BJP. There were also a number of politicians from Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and Hindustani Awami Morcha (S).