Ahmed Patel appointed Congress Treasurer
New Delhi, Aug 21 : Ahmed Patel, a long-time political aide of Sonia Gandhi, was on Tuesday appointed as Congress Treasurer and Anand Sharma as Chairperson of its Foreign Affairs Department.
Patel, who was Political Secretary to Sonia Gandhi for 16 years when she was the Congress President, replaces Motilal Vora who was the Treasurer for almost 17 years.
Former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar was made a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee while former Goa Congress chief Luizinho Falerio was appointed General Secretary incharge of the party affairs in the northeast states.
A former Union Minister, Sharma replaces party veteran Karan Singh.
The new appointments were made by Congress President Rahul Gandhi.
A three-time Lok Sabha MP from Gujarat, Patel is now into his fifth term in the Rajya Sabha. He has been a party General Secretary from October 1996 to July 2000.
Patel, among other things, had worked for effective coordination between the party and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government from 2004 to 2014.
Faleiro replaces C.P. Joshi, who has now been divested of all the states he was made incharge of, including Assam and Bihar.
The party had lost elections in Assam and several northeastern states when Joshi was party incharge. He belongs to Rajasthan which goes to the Assembly polls in 2018.
Falerio has his task cut out as Mizoram will go to Assembly polls this year. The Congress also faces the challenge of containing the BJP in the region in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
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I-T Department sends notice to actor-director Prithviraj Sukumaran over co-produced films
New Delhi: The Income Tax (I-T) Department has sent a notice to actor and director Prithviraj Sukumaran asking for more details about the money he earned from some films he co-produced. The notice was reportedly served during the last week of March by the I-T office in Kochi. He has been asked to respond by the end of April.
The department is seeking clarification on the income from a few movies Prithviraj was involved in as a co-producer. This comes at a time when the actor has been receiving criticism from right-wing groups over what seemed to be references to the 2002 Gujarat riots in his latest film L2: Empuraan, starring Mohanlal, which released on March 27.
On April 4, 2025, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out searches at the offices of Gokulam Gopalan, a Kerala-based businessman and one of the producers of L2: Empuraan, along with a few others. These searches were part of an investigation into alleged violations of foreign exchange rules.
The I-T notice to Prithviraj is believed to be linked to an ongoing investigation that began in December 2022 into suspected tax evasion within the Malayalam film industry.
At the time, tax officials had raided the homes and offices of several producers, including Antony Perumbavoor, Anto Joseph, and Listin Stephen, over concerns about unreported income, cash deals, and overseas investments. Prithviraj’s premises were also searched during that operation.
