Indian tax authorities Wednesday raided a senior minister in the southern state of Karnataka on charges of tax evasion.

Sleuths from the Income Tax department conducted raids in the homes of Karnataka's Energy Minister D.K. Shivakumar in the state capital Bengaluru and the national capital apart from 37 other places.

The tax authorities also interrogated for a couple of hours the energy minister, who belongs to Karnataka's ruling Congress party, at a resort in Bengaluru where he is currently staying.

It was at the same time reported that the Congress, India's main opposition party, has put up 44 of its lawmakers from the western state of Gujarat to keep them together ahead of the election in Upper House of Parliament and stop the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from poaching them.

As news of the tax raids became public, the Congress party created uproar in the Parliament and demanded an immediate answer from the Indian government, alleging that the raids were politically motivated and were to poach its legislators by the BJP.

However, Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley refuted the allegations of misuse of the tax authorities for political gains. "The raids were only on the minister and not lawmakers ... Use or abuse would depend on the nature of the recovery," he said.