A day after the Congress received new letters from the income-tax department demanding payment of ₹1,823.08 crore, party treasurer Ajay Maken asserted that the income tax authorities were unfairly singling out the Congress party despite the BJP’s serious infractions.
Addressing a press conference along with Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, Maken on Friday said they analysed all the “violations” of the BJP using the same parameters on which his party has been served notices.
He alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party is in serious violation of income tax laws and called on the tax authorities to raise a demand of more than ₹4,600 crore from the ruling party at the Centre.
“We have analysed all violations of the BJP using the same parameters they used to analyse our violations. BJP has a penalty of ₹4600 crore. The income tax department should raise demand from the BJP for the payment of this amount,” Maken said.
He further alleged that the Congress and other like-minded opposition parties are being selectively targeted by the I-T department, which he described as the BJP’s “frontal organization”.
Maken said the Congress will approach the Supreme Court soon over the I-T department’s demands from it.
Ramesh, in charge of communications, alleged that through the “electoral bonds scam”, the BJP has collected ₹8,200 crore and used the route of “pre-paid, post-paid, post-raid bribes and shell companies”.
On the other hand, the BJP is engaged in “tax terrorism”, he alleged.
“Efforts are being made to financially cripple the Congress, but we are not going to be cowed down,” Ramesh said.
The Congress party received fresh notices from the income tax department after the Delhi high court dismissed Congress’s plea challenging the initiation of tax reassessment proceedings against it for a period of four years. A bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav said the pleas were dismissed in terms of its earlier decision refusing to interfere with the opening of reassessment for another period.
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(Source: HT)
