Referring to the recent demand notice for ₹1,800 crore issued by the Income Tax (IT) Department to the Congress, Priyank Kharge, Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj and Information Technology & Biotechnology, said that the BJP had turned Central agencies such as IT Department, Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as its frontal wings to suppress and weaken the Opposition.
“Issuing demand notice for ₹1,823.08 crore without any assessment is meaningless. Why didn’t the IT Department issue a notice to BJP which has also received a large amount of funds in the form of donations? Why hadn’t it issued notices to BJP leader B.S. Yediyurappa when a ‘diary’ was found at his residence? Why hadn’t it issued notice to K.S. Eshwarappa when a currency-counting machine was found at his residence? By misusing its power at the Centre, the BJP has turned the IT Department, ED and CBI as their frontal wings to selectively target the Opposition and weaken them,” he said at a media conference in the District Congress Committee (DCC) office here on Saturday.
Mr. Priyank also pointed out the concerns expressed by the United Nations, Germany and the United States over the misuse of power by the Centre in the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by ED.
“BJP is afraid of the Opposition. It strongly feels that it would lose the current Lok Sabha elections. As per its internal survey, the BJP would not win even in 200 seats. Congress and its alliance partners would win the elections. That is why it is misusing its power to weaken the Opposition through IT department, ED and CBI,” he said.
Alleging that BJP had hardly come up with any new programmes and development initiatives, Mr. Priyank Kharge said that the saffron party was simply renaming, repackaging and re-launching the previous Congress products.
“BJP is heavily following the three-R policy – rename, repackage and relaunch. It has not come up with new programmes. It simply renamed, repackaged and re-launched the same programmes that the Congress government had implemented earlier. Now they are called Modi Guarantee. Nothing new in them,” he said.
Mr. Priyank also listed out a few of the important development projects implemented by the Congress-led Union government for Kalyana Karnataka, including Special Status to Kalyana Karnataka under Article 371(J) of the Constitution, the establishment of Central University of Karnataka near Kalaburagi, the establishment of ESIC Hospital complex in Kalaburagi, Kadechur Railway Coach Factory, Kalaburagi-Hotagi Railway line doubling project, introducing 27 new trains, electrification of Wadi-Kalaburagi Railway line and Gulbarga–Gutti National Highway and challenged the BJP to name any such project implemented by its government for the region.
“I am ready for an open debate. Let the BJP leaders speak on their party’s contributions and I will speak on Congress’ contributions,” he said.
When asked about Kalaburagi Lok Sabha member Umesh Jadhav’s comments on the threat letter he [Mr. Priyank] received, Mr. Priyank said: “I said that I had a threat from Manuvadis. But Mr. Jadhav responded to it. I don’t understand why he took it personally even though I had not mentioned his name”.
District Congress Committee president Jagadev Guttedar, Kalaburagi South MLA Allamprabhu Patil, party leaders Kiran Deshmukh, Praveen Harawal and others were present.
