Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday lashed out at Congress MP Rahul Gandhi over the latter’s ‘biggest extortion racket’ jibe on electoral bonds.
“Gandhi also got ₹1,600 crore. He should explain where he got that ‘hafta vasooli’ from. We say it is transparent donation but if he says it is vasooli, he should give details,” the minister said at a summit hosted by CNN News 18.
When asked if the Bharatiya Janata Party would declare the list of donors, the minister said that the INDIA bloc will ‘not be able to show its face’. Last week, several political parties revealed the source and amount of donations received through poll bonds. According to the EC data, BJP had received ₹6,061 crore (47.5% of total redeemed value), followed by the Trinamool Congress with ₹1,610 crore (12.6%) and Congress with ₹1,422 crore (11.1%).
Future Gaming of lottery king Santiago Martin was the biggest purchaser of electoral bonds at ₹1,368 crore, of which nearly 37 per cent went to Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).
HD Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular) received bonds worth ₹89.75 crore, including ₹50 crore from Megha Engineering, the second largest purchaser of electoral bonds.
“There is an allegation that we have received a lot of donations. This is completely false. We have got ₹6,200 crore, whereas ‘Indi Alliance’ led by Rahul Gandhi has received more than ₹6,200 crore. While we have 303 seats, we have governments in 17 states, how many seats do the ‘Indi Alliance’ have?” the Union home minister said.
Shah’s remark comes in wake of the Supreme Court striking down electoral bonds as ‘unconstitutional’. The minister said that he respects the top court verdict, but he said that the poll bonds almost ended black money in politics.
Continuing his attack on INDIA bloc, Shah said that the opposition bloc was against the bonds, alleging that they wanted the “old system of cut money to rule over politics once again.”
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(Source: HT)
