The Income tax department’s TDS (tax deduction at source) section served notice on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) state unit, which is organizing the Oct 27 rally, seeking details of the rally expenditure and of payments made to the contractors.    “The TDS section has sought detailed information about the expenditure for holding rally in a big way,” a department official, who preferred to remain anonymous, said.

The official said the department has also sought information about expenditure on making of the huge dais, light and sound arrangements, hiring of trains, buses and other vehicles to ferry supporters to the spot, shelters erected for them and propaganda including money spent on posters, banners, flags, and hoardings.

“IT department is also conducting its own internal survey on expenditure of Modi’s rally here to assess the detains provided by the BJP later about it,” the official said.   BJP has booked 11 special trains and nearly 5,000 buses to ferry workers and supporters to Patna for its rally.

JD(U) General Secretary K C Tyagi has written separate letters to the EC and Income Tax department to seek details of source of funding of the rally, party sources said.  “In letters to IT, Tyagi sought to know whether the huge cash being spent on the rally in Patna is coming from state party or sourced from Ahmedabad,” the sources said.

Meanwhile, Patna Municipal Corporation Executive Officer PMC Shashi Sekhar said, “We are removing posters and hoardings (of the rally) enroute Rabindra Bhawan, the venue for the President’s programme on the second convocation of IIT Patna here tomorrow, for security reasons.”

Bihar BJP President Mangal Pandey described the act as “misuse of state machinery.”  State BJP General Secretary Suraj Nandan Mehta said the ruling party was demoralised by the proposed rally and thus resorting to “mischief” to spoil it, but they would not succeed in their efforts.