Stepping up the attack on the BJP-led government at the Centre, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday accused the ruling dispensation of capturing democracy through “extortion and financial terrorism” and said the party shall fight it “tooth and nail”.

In a post on X, he said, “An autocratic Modi government is capturing democracy through extortion and financial terrorism. The Modi government hoodwinked nationalised banks to transfer Rs 65 crore of the donation received by Congress and seized it through Income Tax.

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“Has the BJP ever paid Income Tax? The BJP received donations from at least 30 firms, after it misused CBI, IT, ED to raid them. Reports also show that some of these firms handed out a heftier amount to the BJP in the months following the searches,” the Congress chief said.

Attacking the BJP, he said, “On one hand the Modi government wants to steal the hard earned money of people donated to the Congress party in good faith, and on the other hand it threatens corporate firms through ED, CBI, IT etc to grab lion’s share of donations. Looting Opposition and blackmailing donors to fill BJP’s coffers is a dark phase for our democracy.”

Kharge, who is also the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said, “We shall fight this tooth and nail – Both in the court of law and in the court of the people.”

Meanwhile, Congress’ general secretary in-charge of organization KC Venugopal at a press along with party’s national Treasurer Ajay Maken and general secretary in-charge of Communications Jairam Ramesh, claimed that as per the latest information from the banks, the BJP government “forced” the banks to transfer approximately Rs 65.89 crore from its different accounts.

Slamming the BJP, Venugopal said, “They are taking away our money. Basically they are stealing our money from banks. We also ruled this country. If any such instance that BJP can point out they had this type of experience during the Congress government.This is clearly an example of dictatorship. The BJP is dragging the largest democracy of the world into a ‘dictatorship raj’.”

“Unlike the BJP, we got this money from ordinary workers of the party Just before the parliamentary elections, the account of the principal Opposition party is being hijacked by the BJP government,” he added.

Not only the Congress, the government is targeting the entire Opposition parties in different ways, Venugopal said.

“Certainlay we will take up in a united manner. We will take it up to the people,” he added.

Echoing similar sentiments, Maken accused the BJP government of “cripple” the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

“We have approached the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (over the matter). We are fully confident that we will get justice from the Tribunal,” he informed.

Taking a dig at the ruling BJP, Ramesh accused of doing “vendetta politics”.

Last week, the Congress accused the government that it had frozen the accounts of the country’s largest Opposition party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The party said that the “issue was related to 2018-19 for which the Income Tax department asked for a recovery of Rs 210 crore from it”. Later, it said it can operate its accounts with a lien of the IT department thereon.