Ranchi/New Delhi, Oct. 31: The income-tax department began interrogating former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda today after conducting nationwide raids on 60 properties allegedly owned by him in cities like New Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta, increasing the possibility of his arrest before the beginning of Assembly elections on Nov. 25.

The raids, which began at 9.30am, were conducted by at least 70 teams comprising 400 tax sleuths and assisted by officials of Enforcement Directorate on all his properties also located in Lucknow, Nasik, Ranchi, Chaibasa and Jamshedpur.

Koda, whose interrogation could continue throughout the night, is the first former chief minister to have been booked under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. He was heading a coalition in Jharkhand between February 2006 and August 2008.

Now an Independent MP from Chaibasa, he has been charged with money laundering and diversion of state funds to the tune of crores. But Koda has denied the charges, maintaining he was a victim of political vendetta.

“It appears there were unaccounted money transactions when Koda was mines minister in the Arjun Munda government and subsequently during (his) chief ministership,” director of investigation (income-tax) Ujjwal Choudhary told reporters in Ranchi after the raids, also conducted on the premises of his alleged associates, Sanjay Chaudhary and Binod Sinha.

Both Sanjay Chaudhary and Sinha couldn’t be traced, prompting the IT director to issue a 24-hour deadline for them to appear before the department, failing which, they could be arrested.

It appeared, he said, that Sinha and Sanjay Chaudhary shipped out over $10 million to UAE, Thailand and Malayasia through hawala agents, two of whom, Lalit Jain and Arvind Vyas, were being questioned in Mumbai.

Also, he pointed out that during the last one-and-a-half years, the turnover of three relatively new companies floated by Sinha in the name of Balajee Group shot up to a staggering Rs 1,200 crore to Rs 1,300 crore. “Transactions in these companies were made through cash as well as cheques,” Choudhary said.

In Ranchi, 24 places were raided and 30 other sites “surveyed”. Among those close to Koda whose premises were raided included former private secretary Arun Kumar Shrivastava and associates Vijay Joshi, B.K. Singh, Prem Shankaran and Arup Chatterjee.

The Enforcement Directorate had registered a case against Koda (38) and three of his ministerial colleagues — Kamlesh Singh, Bhanu Pratap Sahi and Bandhu Tirkey — on October 8 charging him with having made massive illegal investments abroad, including the purchase of mines in Liberia.

Today’s raids, Choudhary confirmed, were launched on the basis of the department’s own intelligence inputs.