Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president K. Selvaperunthagai said on Friday that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s warnings about corruption in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, including the issue of electoral bonds, had been vindicated after the details of the electoral bonds being made public by the Election Commission of India on its website.
Mr. Selvaperunthagai demanded answers from Mr. Modi and BJP Tamil Nadu president K. Annamalai on the recent revelations related to the electoral bonds.
Speaking to the reporters, he said several companies had bought electoral bonds worth much more than their entire turnover. This disproved the BJP’s claim of stamping out black money and terror-funding through the 2016 demonetisation. “When they went in for demonetisation, they said they will eliminate black money; but it [the electoral bond details] shows that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP government are responsible for proliferation of black money,” he said.
The Congress had been stating that the BJP was using the various agencies — the Enforcement Directorate, the Income Tax Department and the Central Bureau of Investigation — to raid and extort, he said, pointing to the instances in which companies had allegedly bought electoral bonds after they were raided.
“The data show that there was an income tax raid on Yashoda Hospital on December 26, 2022, and the hospital bought the bonds in April 2023. Similarly, there was a raid on Hero Motors, October 7, 2022, and the company bought the bonds on March 31, 2023. So, it is clear that they raid a company and threaten it with cases; thereafter, the company pays the BJP through the electoral bonds, and the cases will not be pursued.”
Acknowledging that all parties had taken money through the electoral bonds, Mr. Selvaperunthagai sought to differentiate between the money taken by a party without any condition and the money extorted from companies through intimidation from the Central government agencies.
“We are opposing the way in which the ED, the CBI and the Income Tax Department have been used to raid, file cases and extort money to ensure that cases are not pursued. Those who have donated to us have done so on their own. We protested in front of the State Bank of India demanding that the data be made public. We did not try to delay the publication of the data until after the election, but the BJP tried to do so,” he said.
