Congress party has demanded for Supreme Court inquiry on the money BJP received through electoral bonds. Addressing a press conference in Bengaluru, Karnataka, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge also demanded that all the bank accounts of the BJP should be immediately frozen “due to the illegal nature of the funds received through the Electoral Bonds Scheme”.
Noting that nearly 50% of the donations though the new scrapped electoral bonds scheme between April 2019 and January 2024 were received by the ruling party, Kharge alleged that “There are many dubious donors” and that several companies were pressured by the BJP using government entities such as the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Income Tax (IT) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to donate.
As per the data disclosed by State Bank of India (SBI) and published by the Election Commission of India (ECI), Rs 6,060.51 crore or 47 per cent was received by the BJP while its biggest opposition party, Congress received Rs 1,421.87 crore which is 11%.
“It is quite worrying that while the Bank Accounts of the Congress party have been frozen. However, no action has been taken against the BJP which has illegally acquired crores and crores of money”, Kharge said. He further added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be held accountable because he is the “main man” as “he himself claims”.
Congress’ Treasurer Ajay Maken highlighted that since 2018, a total of 22,217 bonds had been issued but, in the SBI list there were only 18,871 bonds.
“Who are the people the Modi government is trying to shield?” he questioned, reiterating the demand for an investigation.
In another press conference held in Wada, Maharashtra, Jairam Ramesh, AICC General Secretary (Communications), accused the BJP of indulging in “Give donations and do business”. He also claimed that the ‘account ban’ against Congress is a conspiracy is being hatched to weaken the Party economically.
The Income Tax Department had frozen all the bank accounts of the Congress Party on 20th February 2024 just ahead of the General Elections.
The Supreme Court of India on Friday issued a notice to SBI to disclose the unique bond ID numbers which will clearly tell exactly which donor gave money to which political party.
