New Delhi, Feb 16 (EFE).- The Indian National Congress, the main opposition party, alleged on Friday that the government had frozen its bank accounts over a tax dispute just weeks before the country’s general elections.
The opposition party likened the freeze, which was partially removed later, to an attack on India’s democracy, especially following the recent Supreme Court decision to strike down a controversial fund-raising scheme that allowed anonymous political donations, a system largely benefiting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“We have learned that banks refuse to honor the checks we issue. Upon inquiry, we discovered that all bank accounts belonging to the country’s main opposition party have been frozen…dealing a severe blow to India’s democracy,” Congress leader Ajay Maken told reporters in New Delhi.
The party said its accounts were frozen over alleged discrepancies in its tax returns as the tax department was asking for 2.1 billion rupees ($25 million).
An income tax tribunal later allowed the party to operate its accounts until Feb. 21, when it would hear merits of the recovery notice, Congress lawyer and parliamentarian Vivek Tankha said.
Tankha said the tribunal put a “lien on the bank account and there is no restriction on the bank account and they can operate.”
Maken said the financial curb against the olden Indian political party went “beyond merely freezing the Congress’s accounts” because it “effectively freezes democracy in the country.”
He noted that the restriction on Congress’s finances coincided with the upcoming announcement of dates for the parliamentary elections scheduled for the summer. “What message is the government attempting to convey.”
The party, headed for decades by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, said the rationale behind freezing the Congress accounts was absurd and followed a tax demand of 2.1 billion Indian rupees (nearly $25 million) by the Income Tax Department against the Youth Congress and Congress party.
Maken said the Congress party and its youth wing had raised the funds in question through crowd-funding.
This move comes after the top court invalidated the electoral bonds scheme in a decision considered a setback to Modi’s BJP.
The BJP, which has become India’s wealthiest and most dominant party over the last decade, is believed to have amassed its substantial fortune by exploiting the contentious anonymous political donations in a country where election campaigning costs parties and candidates billions of dollars.
Modi is eying a third term in government, seeking to further strengthen the brute parliamentary majority the BJP won in the last 2019 election.
“The state of democracy in our nation is dire. It has been stifled and undermined. Is the government pushing for a one-party system? Is the objective to cripple the bank accounts of all opposition parties? Have other political entities lost their right to exist?” asked the Congress leader. EFE
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