Our capacity to contest elections damaged; we cannot even buy rail tickets: Congress

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By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi, March 21: The Congress on Thursday said that Indian democracy has been frozen as the main Opposition party has been financially crippled ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The Congress accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of orchestrating the crippling of the Congress ahead of the elections. The Congress claimed that the party is not able to buy even rail tickets as the bank accounts remain frozen.

The Congress has also alleged that the officials forced the bank managers to transfer more than Rs 115 crores from the party’s accounts to the government. “There is no democracy in India. The democracy in India is frozen. We cannot even buy rail tickets ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. There is no level playing field,” alleged former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

The top leadership of the Congress on Thursday came before the media at the party headquarters to raise the issue of the bank accounts of the party having been frozen. The Congress parliamentary party leader Sonia Gandhi, the party president Mallikarjuna Kharge, and Rahul Gandhi addressed the media.

“This is an assault on Indian democracy. Irony is that the institutions are not intervening. The Election Commission has not intervened. There is no level playing democracy as the capacity of the main Opposition party has been crippled,” added Rahul Gandhi.

The Congress treasurer Ajay Maken said that the Income Tax Department issued a notice concerning a matter of the times when Sitaram Keshri headed the party in 1993-94. Maken also said that the IT department slapped a penalty of Rs 210 crores for alleged irregularities of Rs 14 lakhs of deposits in the bank accounts of the party.

Sonia Gandhi said that the Congress is facing systematic efforts for financial crippling of the main Opposition party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. She alleged that the money is being “transferred from our accounts forcefully”.

Kharge charged that the ruling party has now established a monopoly in the advertisement space. “The scale of funds being spent by the ruling party is unprecedented,” added Kharge.

The Congress will be raising the issue of the frozen bank accounts across the country. Maken said that the BJP got five times more money through the electoral bonds than the main Opposition party.

The Congress communication department chief Jairam Ramesh claimed that “we have been able to link Rs 4000 crores of the electoral bonds received to the award of the contracts worth Rs four lakh crores”.