‘Democracy frozen’: Congress says its bank accounts have been frozen by Income Tax dept

The Income Tax department has frozen the bank accounts of the Congress party and the Youth Congress, party treasurer Ajay Maken said today.

Maken addressed a press conference this morning in Delhi, where he said the party realised what had happened when they learned banks weren’t honouring a cheque they’d issued.

“On further investigation, we got to know that the Youth Congress bank accounts have been frozen. The accounts of the Congress party have also been seized,” ANI quoted him as saying.

“It’s not a freezing of Congress’ account but democracy has been frozen,” he added, alleging the party didn’t have money to “pay electricity bills, to pay salaries to our employees”. There are just weeks to go before general elections take place in India, and Maken urged the judiciary to intervene.

The Hindu reported that four accounts have been frozen in total. Importantly, Maken alleged the Income Tax department had imposed a penalty of Rs 210 crore on the party because it filed its I-T returns for 2018-19 about 40-45 days late.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge tweeted that the party would “take to the streets and fight strongly against this autocracy”.

These events come a day after the Supreme Court struck down the Modi government’s electoral bonds scheme as “unconstitutional”. The BJP received over 50 percent of these funds – over Rs 6,500 crore – until March 2023. Read about the verdict here.

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