Lok Sabha elections: Rahul Gandhi attacked PM Narendra Modi at a joint press conference with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Ghaziabad: Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi “the champion of corruption”. Reacting to PM Modi’s recent remarks on the scrapped electoral bonds scheme, Gandhi said it was the “biggest extortion scheme in the world”.
Addressing a joint press conference with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, the Wayanad MP alleged that PM Modi’s recent interview to ANI was “scripted and a flop show”.
“A few days ago, the Prime Minister gave a very long interview to ANI. It was scripted, but it was a flop show. The Prime Minister tried to explain electoral bonds in it. The Prime Minister said that the system of electoral bonds was brought for transparency, to clean politics. If this is true then why was that system cancelled by the Supreme Court. And secondly, if you wanted to bring transparency, why did you hide the names of those who gave money to BJP. And why did you hide the dates on which they gave you the money?,” Rahul Gandhi said.
The electoral bonds scheme was scrapped by the Supreme Court earlier this year. Last month, the court made the State Bank of India reveal the names of individuals and entities that bought electoral bonds.
“This is the biggest extortion scheme in the world. All the businessmen of India understand and know this and no matter how much clarification the Prime Minister wants to give, it will not make any difference. Because the entire country knows that the Prime Minister is the champion of corruption,” Rahul Gandhi added.
What PM Modi said on electoral bonds
In the interview, PM Narendra Modi had accused the Opposition of spreading lies on the electoral bonds scheme and said that “everyone will regret it when there is an honest reflection”.
PM Modi said the scheme was formulated with the aim of curbing black money in politics.
“There has been a discussion in our country for a long time that (through) black money is a dangerous game in elections. The play of black money in the country’s elections ends, this discussion has been going on for a long time. Money is spent in elections; no one can deny this. My party also spends, all parties, candidates spend and money has to be taken from people. I wanted us to try something, how can our elections be free from this black money, how can there be transparency? There was a pure thought in my mind. We were looking for a way. We found a small way, we never claimed that this was the absolute way,” he added.
PM Modi pointed out that out of the total donations made by the 16 companies which bought electoral bonds after action by probe agencies, only 37 per cent of the amount went to the BJP and 63 per cent to Opposition parties.