Give Cong access to its bank accounts to ensure level playing field: Sonia Gandhi
New Delhi (PTI): Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of crippling the Congress financially, former party president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday demanded that the party be given access to its bank accounts to ensure a level playing field in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls.
In a press conference also addressed by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, the party stressed that all its accounts were frozen.
"...We can do no campaign work... Our ability to fight elections has been damaged," former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said while launching a scathing attack on the government over the issue of freezing of the party's accounts due to an Income Tax returns issue.
"Defreeze our accounts to ensure a level playing field in polls," Congress president Kharge added.
According to Rahul Gandhi, this is not a freezing of the Congress' accounts but a freezing of Indian democracy.
"There is no democracy in India today and the idea that India is the world's largest democracy is a complete lie," Rahul Gandhi alleged, terming the freezing of accounts a criminal action against the Congress and a criminal action by the prime minister and home minister.
"There are institutions that are supposed to protect the democratic framework but nothing is happening," he said.
According to Sonia Gandhi, money from the Congress' accounts were being taken away forcefully.
"Systematic effort is underway by prime minister to cripple the Congress financially," she said, hitting out at the government.
On the one hand is the electoral bonds issue, on the other, finances of the principal opposition party are under assault, Sonia Gandhi said.
"Even under these challenges we are doing our best to maintain effectiveness of our campaign," Sonia Gandhi told reporters.
The issue, she said, is extremely serious and affects not just Congress but India's democracy.
"I appeal to constitutional bodies that they should allow our party to access bank accounts if they want free and fair polls," Kharge said.
The party in power, he said, amassed funds through electoral bonds while freezing the Congress' accounts to create hurdles for it in fighting polls.
"Those in power should not have direct or indirect control over constitutional bodies," he said, adding that those in power should not have monopoly over resources.
VIDEO | Here’s what Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) said during a press conference in Delhi.
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Nashik court sends ‘godman’ Kharat to 3-day police custody in 7th sexual exploitation case
Nashik (PTI): A court in Maharashtra's Nashik has remanded self-styled astrologer-cum-godman Ashok Kharat to police custody till April 29 in the seventh case of sexual exploitation registered against him.
Kharat, a former Merchant Navy officer arrested on March 18, is accused of sexually exploiting several women and indulging in large-scale financial fraud by claiming to have divine powers and knowledge of black magic.
In the seventh case, Kharat sexually exploited a married woman who had approached him in search of solutions to her family problems.
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The accused allegedly gave the woman something to drink, sexually assaulted her while her husband sat outside his office and threatened to kill her if she told anyone about it.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing into 12 cases of sexual exploitation and financial fraud registered against Kharat in Nashik and Ahilyanagar districts, on Sunday filed a request application in the court demanding his custody in the seventh case.
Kharat was produced in court for a virtual hearing in the seventh case on Monday.
The prosecution demanded six-day police custody for Kharat, citing the discovery of a locker in Kharat's house during the investigation, from which the police recovered two blank cheques and other documents, all of which have to be probed.
The court agreed to the prosecution's demand and remanded Kharat to three-day police custody till April 29 in the case.
Kharat has been at the centre of a political firestorm, as he was well-connected, and photographs of him with political leaders and other important members of society have been surfacing in mainstream and social media since his arrest.
