The Indian National Congress has accused the BJP government at the Centre of ‘financial terrorism after the income Tax Department collected Rs 65.8 crore from various bank accounts belonging to the Congress on 20th February 2024.
The IT Department had earlier frozen the accounts of the main Opposition Party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
In a press conference held today, Ajay Maken, Treasurer of Congress, alleged that the “Income Tax officials went to the bank branches and threatened them and collected Rs 65.8 crore through demand draft.” He claimed that the Party received donations of Rs 142.83 crore in 2018-19, of which Rs 14.49 lakh was received from the one month salary of its MLAs and MPs and because of this Rs 14.49 lakh, the IT department has imposed a penalty of Rs 210 crore on the Congress after five years.
Maken said that it was an “attempt to break the Congress party financially so that we are not able to contest elections”.
He also informed that political parties are exempted from income tax and questioned if ever the BJP had to pay income tax.
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KC Venugopal, Congress General Secretary (Organisation) declared that the BJP government had clearly committing “financial terrorism”. He informed that the amount had been taken from the bank accounts of AICC, Indian Youth Congress (IYC) and National Students Union of India.
“Unlike the BJP, we acquired this money from ordinary workers of the party,” Venugopal claimed.
Jairam Ramesh, Congress General Secretary (Communication), said that the only objective of the government is to weaken the Congress party financially, so that it would not be able to contest elections.’
Read more: IT freezes Congress’ bank accounts; India’s democracy has been frozen, says BJP’s biggest Opposition
“An autocratic Modi Govt is capturing Democracy through Extortion and Financial Terrorism!” Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge proclaimed in a post on X, as he claimed that the government “hoodwinked” banks and stole “the hard earned money of people donated to the Congress party in good faith”.
“We shall fight this tooth and nail – Both in the court of law and in the court of the people!” Kharge affirmed.
While expressing confidence that the Congress will definitely win the case in its favour, the leaders also expressed concern that the verdict will be out only after the Lok Sabha election which may be too late.
