New Delhi: In a major breakthrough, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday recovered Rs 4 crore cash from the residence of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s nephew Bhupinder Singh Honey.

ED carried out marathon raids across at least 10 locations in the poll-bound Punjab since morning.

According to reports, a total of more than Rs 6 crore cash has been recovered from all the ten locations, where the ED team carried out searches for more than 7-8 hours.

The seizure of whopping amount of R 4 crore cash from Channi’s kin amidst the election season has sparked off major controversy, triggering political war of words.

Punjab CM trained guns at the Centre and dubbed the ED raids as ‘political vendetta’ and an attempt to coerce the Congressmen ahead of Assembly polls while the opposition targeted Cong dispensation of putting ‘money power’ into play before the polls.

Reports said that the ED raids came in the backdrop of alleged sand mining case against CM Channi’s nephew Bhupinder Singh Honey. A FIR in the case was filed in 2018.

Taking umbrage at the raids just ahead of polls, the Punjab CM also alleged a pattern behind the ‘misuse & abuse’ of country’s premiere agencies. The Chief Minister said that similar pattern happened during Bengal elections.

Slamming the CM Charanjit Singh Singh, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said, “It’s very sad to know that raid is being conducted on the premises of Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi’s relative in connection with a case of illegal sand mining. Punjab CM & his relatives are involved in illegal sand mining”.

Punjab is headed to single-phase polling on February 20 for the 117 member Assembly.