Stepping up its attack on the BJP government, the Congress on Saturday accused the ruling dispensation of corruption through electoral bonds and demanded a Supreme Court (SC) monitored inquiry besides formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) over the matter.
The statement of the Congress came days after the Election Commission of India (ECI) uploaded the data on electoral bonds on its website after the State Bank of India (SBI) submitted all the details on the same to it as directed by the apex court.
Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, Congress general secretary in-charge of Communications Jairam Ramesh said, “For the past month, the SBI desperately attempted to delay the release of the electoral bonds data until June 30, much after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. This was most certainly done at the behest of the Modi government.”
Referring to the electoral bonds data, he said, “It becomes crystal clear as to why the Modi government and the BJP spared no effort to stop the electoral bonds data from being published.The matched database of the electoral bond donors and the recipients, when combined with publicly available information on contracts, project clearances, raids and other similar events, prima facie paints a clear and sordid picture of legalisation of corruption.”
Attacking the government, Ramesh said, “The opaque scheme ensured that prepaid bribes, postpaid bribes and even post-raid bribes could now be routed through the banking channel as electoral bonds. Essentially, this is the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) who gave a guarantee of ‘bringing back black money’, instead legalised corruption and then desperately tried to hide it.”
Claiming that 38 corporate groups which have got 179 major contracts and projects approvals from the Central or BJP state governments have donated electoral bonds, the MP said, “These companies have got a total worth of Rs 3.8 lakh crore in projects and contracts, in exchange for Rs 2,004 crores in electoral bonds donations to the BJP.”
Without naming, he further said, “There are many such examples of people who have been subject to raids, who bought the bonds and they have got free of ED, CBI and Income Tax. The SC monitored inquiry and a constitution of SIT will bring out all these facts and details.”
In response to a question, Ramesh said, “After the INDIA government comes to power, we will get it investigated.”
Major parties which figure in the list uploaded by the poll panel are BJP, Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Janata Dal (Secular), Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena and Telugu Desam Party.