Stepping up its assault on the federal government over the electoral bonds subject, the Congress on Saturday alleged that hundreds of crores have been “extorted” from company India and asserted that the necessity for a Supreme Court-monitored impartial probe is urgent.
Congress basic secretary Jairam Ramesh mentioned the BJP’s 4 “corrupt tactics” — “Chanda Do, Dhandha Lo (give donations, get business), Hafta Vasuli (extortion), Theka Lo-Rishvat Do (get contracts after paying bribe), Farzi Company – Dakait Sangni (loot through shell companies) — emerged after a quick first analysis of the data on the “electoral bond rip-off”.
These 4 patterns of corruption which have emerged are of grave concern and the necessity for a Supreme Court-monitored impartial probe is urgent, Ramesh mentioned in a submit on X.
“In fact, since yesterday, we have seen dozens of examples of these kinds of corruption emerge. Thousands of crores have been extorted and extracted from corporate India, and thousands of crores of public assets have been looted,” he alleged.
Citing examples which are “concerning”, Ramesh mentioned the infrastructure corporations have donated huge sums of cash.
“For instance, the second-largest donor of Electoral Bonds, Megha Engineering, was involved with the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project in Telangana, labelled the ‘world’s largest multi-stage lift irrigation project’,” he claimed.
“Megha constructed some part of the Medigadda Barrage, a key part of the project. It so happens that the Barrage has since started sinking, putting waste to 1 lakh crores worth of taxpayers money,” he alleged.
The previous couple of years have seen fairly just a few cases of such infrastructure failures in Morbi, Gujarat, for example, Ramesh mentioned.
“Have these shoddily-built barrages, buildings, and bridges all over India, been covered up with some hefty electoral bond donations? Have Indians’ lives been put at risk for ‘chanda’ collection?” Ramesh requested.
The Congress chief additionally alleged that many corporations have obtained inexperienced clearances after shopping for electoral bonds.
“How much forest land has been lost to electoral bonds? Which Adivasi communities have had to bear the burden of keeping the BJP’s coffers full?” he mentioned.
Noting that pharma corporations have given hundreds of crores in electoral bonds, Ramesh mentioned some large donors, equivalent to Hetero Drugs, have needed to recall medicines from the US market attributable to impurities discovered by the American regulators.
Have India’s drugs regulators allowed tainted medicines out there in alternate for electoral bonds, he requested.
“The largest electoral bond donor, at almost Rs 1,400 crores, is Future Gaming & Hotels. It turns out that the son of the owner of Future is a member of the BJP and that the owner himself met Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in April 2023 despite facing many CBI cases,” Ramesh claimed.
How many extra fraudulent corporations on the checklist have shut BJP hyperlinks, he requested.
“In addition to these corrupt practices that have emerged through the electoral bond scam, this morning, news has come out of an US investigation into Mr Modi’s favourite business group,” he mentioned.
The Congress had earlier raised 100 questions on the “Modani Scam” in its ‘Hum Adani Ke Hain Kaun’ collection, Ramesh mentioned.
“Between the Modani Scam and the Electoral Bond Scam, the Prime Minister has scaled the Mount Everest of corruption,” he mentioned.
“Governance in Modi’s India has been about ‘Jitna chanda, Utna haq’,” Ramesh mentioned.
The Congress had on Friday demanded a high-level probe by the Supreme Court towards the ruling BJP and freezing of its financial institution accounts for alleged corruption within the electoral bonds scheme, because it claimed the social gathering received 50 per cent of the cash obtained by means of these bonds.
Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Airtel, Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta, ITC, Mahindra and Mahindra, and a lesser-known Future Gaming and Hotel Services have been among the many distinguished consumers of the now-scrapped electoral bonds for making political donations.
Following a Supreme Court directive, the State Bank of India (SBI), which was the authorised vendor of electoral bonds, shared the info with the ballot panel on March 12.
The high courtroom had given the Election Commission time until 5 pm on March 15 to add the info on its web site which it did a day earlier on March 14.
(Only the headline and film of this report could have been reworked by the Business Standard workers; the remainder of the content material is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First Published: Mar 16 2024 | 11:16 AM IST
