Three days after BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi told diamond merchants in Mumbai that they run the risk of receiving notices from the I-T department for hosting him, the tax officials did just that: they carried out search operations at offices of several diamond merchants in the city on Thursday.

BJP leader Raj Purohit alleged that these raids were politically motivated, saying eight to ten big diamond merchants who hosted Modi's function at the Bandra Kurla complex were raided by the taxmen from noon onwards. "These raids are happening because the diamond merchants have hosted Modi recently and Rajnath Singh in the past. We have nothing against the officers, they are just following orders, but their political masters are making them do all these things - that's condemnable," Purohit told ET.

According to the BJP leader, teams of IT officers raided the Pancharatna Building and Prasad Chambers in Mumbai and inspected documents, while others fanned out to offices in BKC and Goregaon.