It also comes on a day when 24 opposition parties have united in Bengaluru, Karnataka, to discuss a strategy to take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Among those at the meeting is Tamil Nadu ruling party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M.K. Stalin. Ponmudy is a key leader of the DMK.




Last month, former minister and DMK leader V. Senthil Balaji was arrested by the ED.

Indian Express has reported that raids started at 7 am today, July 17, at four locations across Villupuram and Chennai, connected to Ponmudy, his son and Kallakurichi MP Gautham Sigamani, and their close relatives, and associates.

The ED has not officially spoken on which case the raids pertain to. Express has reported that its sources suggest it relates to a 2012 case filed against Ponmudy and Sigamani, alleging violations in red sand quarry allocation when Ponmudy was a minister in the 2006-2011 DMK government.

In 2020, the report said, the ED had conducted raids against Sigamani and attached property worth Rs 8.6 crore, reportedly linked to illegal acquisition and non-repatriation of foreign exchange earnings.


Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has tweeted condemning the raids, “just before [the] crucial opposition meeting.”

“This has become Modi Govt’s predictable script in order to intimidate and divide the opposition.”


The ED, often critiqued as a central agency that functions directly as per the whims of the ruling BJP, was recently on the news when the Supreme Court held that extensions given by the BJP government to its director S.K. Mishra were illegal.


Union home minister Amit Shah had tweeted in the immediate aftermath of the verdict, saying that the “Powers of the ED to strike at those who are corrupt and on the wrong side of the law remain the same.”

He also said that those rejoicing at the verdict were “deluded” and that the “ED is an institution which rises beyond any one individual and is focused on achieving its core objective – i.e. to investigate offences of money laundering and violations of foreign exchange laws.”


In an editorial, the Deccan Herald had highlighted Shah’s odd defence of the ED, and noted that:

“The ED is a statutory body with functions that it is expected to carry out without regard to the wishes of those in government. A member of the government has no reason or authority to speak on its behalf. The Home Minister, especially, has no reason to do so because the ED is attached to the Finance Ministry, not the Home Ministry.”