Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and other leaders of the party on Friday slammed the BJP-led government at the Centre, accusing that it has frozen the accounts of the country’s largest Opposition party and called it an “assault” on democracy.
Notably, the accusation of the Congress against the government comes ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
In a post on X, Kharge wrote, “Power drunk Modi government has frozen the accounts of the country’s largest Opposition party – the Indian National Congress – just before the Lok Sabha elections. This is a deep assault on India’s democracy.”
Attacking the ruling dispensation, the Congress chief further said, “The ‘unconstitutional’ money collected by the BJP would be utilised by them for elections, but the money collected by us through ‘crowdfunding’ shall be sealed.That is why I have said that there won’t be any elections in the future.”
Kharge, who is also the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, appealed to the Judiciary to “save the multi-party system in this country and protect India’s democracy”.
He also said the party will take to the streets and fight strongly against this “autocracy” of the incumbent government.
Echoing similar sentiments, Congress leader and MP Rahul Gandhi in a post on X while taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “Don’t be afraid Modi ji.
We have never bowed down before dictatorship, nor will we ever bow down.”
He also said every Congress worker will fight “tooth and nail” to protect the country’s democracy.
Informing the same, Congress’ Treasurer Ajay Maken at a press conference at the party headquarters, claimed that the accounts of the Congress as well as its Youth wing have been frozen and asserted that the democracy is under attack.
“Democracy has completely ended in India. All the accounts of the country’s main Opposition party, Congress, have been frozen. Not only Congress party, the accounts of the Youth Congress have also been frozen.
Maken claimed that the issue was related to 2018-19 for which the Income Tax department has asked for a recovery of Rs 210 crore from the party and added that the first reason was that the filing of the IT returns were delayed by 40-45 days.
“Since 2019 was an election year, the Congress party submitted the receipts of Rs 199 crore which were spent on the elections. Of this amount Rs 14.40 lakh had been deposited in cash by some Congress MPs and MLAs from their salaries. It was shocking that the IT department had imposed a penalty of Rs 210 crore on the cash deposit of Rs 14.40 lakhs,” he said.
However, later in a post on X, Maken wrote, “On our petition, the Income Tax Department and the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has said that we have to ensure that Rs 115 crores have to be kept in the banks. This 115 crore is the lien marked in the bank accounts. We can spend an amount over and above that.”
“This means that Rs 115 crore have been frozen. This Rs 115 crore is much more than what we have in our Current accounts,” added Maken.
While Congress MP Rajya Sabha MP Vivek Tankha in a post on X said, “Indian National Congress can operate its accounts with a lien of the IT Dept thereon. Direction by ITAT Delhi. Prayer for interim relief will be heard on Wednesday.”
Meanwhile, Congress general secretary in-charge of organisation KC Venugopal said, “The Income Tax Department has frozen the INC’s accounts without any reason and the government has once again tried to murder democracy.”
“But, we will not be bogged down by these relentless attacks – all PCCs will be holding massive protests against this action tomorrow (17th February) outside Income Tax Department offices in all state capitals. We will not surrender – we will not let the power drunk regime silence the people’s power,” he said.