With the Lok Sabha polls underway, the Congress on Thursday accused the BJP of a ‘systematic effort,’ led by none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to financially cripple the grand old party and prevent it from mounting a tough contest amidst the palpable anti-incumbency against the 10-year-rule of the NDA.
Addressing a Press conference after a long time, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi stepped up her party’s demand for access to its bank accounts to ensure a level playing field in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls.
The Press conference was addressed jointly by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and another former party chief Rahul Gandhi who stressed that all its accounts were frozen. The party leaders claimed that it’s not just impacting the Congress’ poll prospect but democracy in India. “...We can do no campaign work... Our ability to fight elections has been damaged,” Rahul Gandhi said launching a scathing attack on the Government over the issue of freezing of the party’s accounts due to an Income Tax returns issue.
“All our bank accounts have been frozen. We can do no campaign work, we cannot support our workers, we cannot support our candidates, our leaders cannot fly from one part of the country to another... They can’t take a railway train and this has been literally two months before the election campaign,” Rahul said.
“Defreeze our accounts to ensure a level playing field in polls,” Kharge demanded. The three senior leaders were flanked by Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh and AICC treasurer Ajay Maken at the Press conference.
Sources said eight of the 11 accounts of the party are frozen. Rahul said 20 per cent of India votes for the Congress which is not even able to pay Rs 2 for anything. “We have already lost a month. We are unable to get slots for advertising, we are unable to put advertisements in newspapers, so what sort of democracy is this,” he said.
Sonia said the issue being taken up today is “very, very serious” and affects not just the Congress but “impacts our democracy itself most fundamentally”.
“A systematic effort is underway by the Prime Minister to cripple the Indian National Congress financially. Funds collected from the public are being frozen, and money from our accounts is being taken away forcibly,” she said.
“However, even under these most challenging circumstances, we are doing our best to maintain the effectiveness of our election campaign,” she said. “On the one hand, there is the electoral bond issue, which has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The electoral bonds have benefitted the BJP hugely. On the other hand, the finances of the principal Opposition party, the INC, are under a determined assault,” she said.
This is truly unprecedented, Sonia said.
Terming the freezing of accounts a criminal action against the Congress by the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, Rahul said there is no democracy in India today and the idea that India is the world’s largest democracy is a complete lie.
“There are institutions that are supposed to protect the democratic framework but nothing is happening,” he said.
Kharge appealed to constitutional bodies to allow the Congress to access bank accounts if they want free and fair polls and added that holding fair polls is essential. The party in power, he said, amassed funds through electoral bonds while freezing the Congress’ accounts to create hurdles for it in fighting polls.
“Those in power should not have direct or indirect control over constitutional bodies,” he said, adding that those in power should not have monopoly over resources. “The BJP has looted donations given to the Congress party by the common public by freezing our accounts and forcibly withdrawing Rs 115.32 crore from them,” Maken alleged.
“It has been orchestrated to cripple us in the elections. Even if our bank accounts are unfrozen today, a huge amount of damage has been done to Indian democracy,” Rahul claimed.