Congress’ general secretary-in-charge for communications Jairam Ramesh on April 1 launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for defending the now-scrapped electoral bonds scheme. PM Modi, in an interview with Tamil channel Thanthi TV on March 31, vehemently justified the scheme, saying that it helped trace the source of funding of political parties
“People who are protesting against the electoral bonds will soon regret it. Before 2014, there was no trail of the funds given to political parties during elections,” PM Modi said.
“Thanks to electoral bonds, we can now trace the source of funding. Nothing is perfect, imperfections can be addressed,” the PM added.
However, Congress’ senior leader criticised PM Modi’s remarks.
“Every single day the Prime Minister scales new heights of hypocrisy and plumbs new depths of dishonesty,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter) while using the hashtag #ElectoralBondScam.
“The Prime Minister has fully lied to the nation in his latest interview to a Tamil television channel. He claims that “where funds have come from, how they are being used” is only known due to the Electoral Bond Scheme instituted by him,” he added.
The seasoned leader of the Grand Old Party then gave away the timeline of the electoral bonds scheme, which was introduced to keep political donations confidential. It prevented public knowledge of donor identities and spending by political parties from 2018 to 2024, he observed.
The Supreme Court, in 2024, declared the scheme unconstitutional and ordered the disclosure of donation details. Despite initial resistance and claims of lacking data by the State Bank of India, the court’s directive led to the quick release of the information to the public, Ramesh added.
‘Corruption of Modi Sarkar’
“The corruption of the Modi Sarkar has been known for a while now; the setback is that there are now hard numbers to prove it,” the Congress leader noted.
“Unfortunately, we can expect the Prime Minister to continue his full-time job of lying to the Indian people to cover it up,” he stated.
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Published: 01 Apr 2024, 02:31 PM IST