India’s Congress claims tax department froze $25m before election.

The Indian National Congress party has stated that the Income Tax Department has frozen its bank accounts, which include deposits totaling 2.1 billion rupees, which is equivalent to $25.3 million, several months prior to the national election deadline.

The primary opposition party issued a statement on Friday, describing the action as “a profound assault on India’s democracy.” They also mentioned that an income tax tribunal has granted them permission to partially run their accounts until February 21, when they will hear the matter officially.
“We received information two days ago that the checks that we were issuing were not being honored by the institutions that we were using… We are unable to pay our employees’ salaries or our electricity bills since we do not have the funds available,” Maken explained.

The action taken by the tax department comes just a few weeks before the announcement would be made regarding the dates for a general election that must be held by the month of May.

Additionally, it occurred one day after the Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in which it found a covert election finance scheme known as electoral bonds to be unlawful. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiated the program in the year 2017.

“Do you believe that democracy is still alive in our country when the accounts of the most prominent opposition party have been frozen just two weeks before the announcement of the national elections?” Reporters were asked by Maken.
“Do you not believe that it is moving in the direction of a one-party system?”

Maken stated that the party was able to collect the 2.1 billion rupees that had been frozen by the tax department through crowd funding and membership drives. He also stated that the dispute with the tax agency was in relation with an issue that had been going on since 2018-2019.

Although Maken admitted that the party had filed its returns up to forty-five days late, he claimed that the party had not committed any actions that would have warranted such a punishment.
“It is a sad day for Indian democracy,” he said, adding that the party will be appealing the judgment and would hold public demonstrations. “Today is a sad day for Indian democracy.”

After Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) surged to power in 2014, the power of Congress, which was previously India’s dominant party, has plunged to historic lows in parliament and in several states. This is a result of the combination of these two factors.
There have been allegations made by critics and human rights organizations that the government of Modi is employing law enforcement authorities in order to selectively target its political adversaries.

Mallikarjun Kharge, the President of the Congress, stated on X that the accounts of the country’s main opposition party had been frozen at the hands of the power-hungry Modi government. An appeal has been made to the judiciary in order to save the multi-party system that exists in this country and to safeguard India’s democracy.

Virendra Sachdeva, the president of the Delhi branch of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), stated that the Congress party was solely responsible for the freezing of its accounts.
His statement to the Press Trust of India news agency was as follows: “It is unfortunate that a large party like Congress is not following the rules that the government has set.”

“In the event that it is not adhering to the rules, then it is required to face the consequences.”

Agencies ‘behaving as BJP’s handmaidens’

The announcement made on Friday comes after a number of legal punishments and ongoing investigations have been carried out against prominent opponents of the BJP.
After receiving a complaint from a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Congress party and the scion of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty, which dominated Indian politics for decades, was found guilty of criminal libel in the previous year.

The decision that Gandhi received for his two-year prison sentence resulted in him being disqualified from parliament for a period of time until it was suspended by a higher court; nonetheless, it did raise worries regarding democratic principles in the country with the most people in the world.

In an effort to oppose Modi in the elections that will take place this year, Congress is a member of an opposition alliance. There have been further prominent personalities within the bloc who have found themselves the subject of investigations.

Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party and the chief minister of Delhi, has been called in for multiple interviews by investigators who are looking into allegations of corruption in the distribution of liquor licenses.
Hemant Soren, who was serving as the chief minister of the eastern state of Jharkhand at the time of his detention, was taken into custody by the police this month on suspicion of assisting an unlawful land deal. Soren was also a prominent member in the opposition alliance.

The Enforcement Directorate, which is India’s primary agency for conducting financial investigations, is now conducting investigations against at least four other chief ministers or their families. All of these individuals are political opponents of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

According to Hartosh Singh Bal, a journalist for the current affairs magazine The Caravan, who spoke with the Agence France-Presse news agency, the recent record of government agencies demonstrated that they were “behaving as handmaidens of the ruling party to cow down the political opposition.”

In addition, investigations that were previously being conducted against former BJP competitors who later shifted their allegiance to the ruling party have been dropped.

Surveys indicate that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expected to win a third consecutive victory in this year’s election. This is in part due to the fact that Modi’s racist appeal speaks to the Hindu majority in India.
In addition, it is anticipated that the Congress will make a minor improvement in its position in the vote.

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