Congress can't be intimidated by 'tax terrorism': CM Siddaramaiah
Bengaluru, Mar 30: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday said the BJP is wrong if it thought that it can intimidate the Congress Party with "tax terrorism".
Reacting to the Income Tax Department's fresh notice to the party asking to pay Rs 1,823 crore, Siddaramaiah alleged that the BJP is afraid of losing the Lok Sabha elections and hence "terrorising" the party by misusing central agencies.
"The Bharatiya Janata Party, fearful of impending defeat in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, has been misusing autonomous institutions like the IT Department, ED, and CBI to undermine the Congress Party.
"As part of this tactic, they have unleashed tax terrorism' on our party. The BJP is under the illusion that by weakening our party, it can win the election," Siddaramaiah said in a statement.
Quoting Congress leaders, the chief minister said that between 2017 and 2018, the BJP obtained contributions from 92 undisclosed donors and from 1,297 donors lacking address details.
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"Should the same criteria (of raising tax demand) be applied to the BJP, it would be liable to pay Rs 4,263 crore for tax discrepancies over the last seven years," Siddaramaiah said.
He charged that the Income Tax Department has become "hyperactive", using tax terrorism' as a tool against opposition parties, including, TMC and CPI, as the election approaches.
However, the same IT Department, which aggressively targets opposition parties, mysteriously turns a blind eye to the BJP's tax violations. The public is not so ignorant as to not question who is blindfolding the IT Department, the chief minister stated.
"The IT Department, which levies accusations of tax violations against certain Congress leaders citing supposed diary entries, overlooks the Yediyurappa diaries exposed in Karnataka, as well as the 'Birla-Sahara' diary that suggests Narendra Modi was a beneficiary. Why have these not caught the department's attention?" Siddaramaiah asked.
He alleged that the ruling BJP has misappropriated thousands of crores through electoral bonds, misusing institutions like IT, ED, and CBI.
However, now, in order to divert the people's attention from this huge scam, the BJP government is making false accusations of income tax evasion with the malicious intention of portraying the opposition parties as guilty, the chief minister charged.
"In the past five years, the BJP government has written off around Rs 10.09 lakh crore of bank loans of fraudsters like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi. The public deserves to know how many kickbacks the BJP received from these individuals," Siddaramaiah claimed.
Seeing Prime Minister Narendra Modi boast of winning 400 seats while engaging in such illegal activities to crush the opposition reveals that he has clearly seen the writing on the wall, Siddaramaiah said.
The Congress on Friday said it has received fresh notices from the income-tax department, asking it to pay Rs 1,823.08 crore, and accused the ruling BJP of indulging in "tax terrorism" to financially cripple the opposition party ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
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Iran, US receive proposal for 45-day ceasefire and reopening of Strait of Hormuz
Dubai (AP): Iran and the United States received a draft proposal late Sunday calling for a 45-day ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, two Mideast officials speaking on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press.
The proposal comes from Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators, hoping the 45-day window would provide enough time for talks to reach a permanent ceasefire. Iran and the US have not responded to the proposal, which was sent to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, the officials said.
The head of intelligence for Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was killed Monday in an attack targeting him, Iranian state media said.
Strikes on cities across Iran have killed more than 25 people from Sunday to Monday, while in Israel's Haifa, two people were found dead and two others were missing in rubble a day after an Iranian attack.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday stepped up his threat to hit Iran's critical infrastructure hard if the country's government doesn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz by his Tuesday deadline.
Trump punctuated his threat with profanity in a social media post, saying Tuesday will be “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran.”
The war began with joint US-Israel strikes on Feb. 28 and has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and spiked fuel prices. Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets, bringing warnings of possible war crimes from the United Nations and international law experts.
Here is the latest:
An Iranian drone strikes the UAE telecommunications building
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An Iranian drone attack damaged a telecommunications building in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates on Monday, the state-run WAM news agency reported.
The attack targeted a building of the state-funded du telecom company.
No one was injured, WAM reported, quoting officials in Fujairah.
South Korea's spy agency sees no signs of North Korea supplying Iran
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South Korea's National Intelligence Service says there are no signs North Korea is providing Iran with weapons or other war-related supplies.
The spy agency's officials told lawmakers Monday that North Korea may be taking a cautious approach to preserve the possibility of dialogue with the Trump administration, according to two lawmakers who attended the closed-door briefing.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry has condemned the US-Israeli attacks on Iran as illegal, but the NIS said Pyongyang has not sent an official condolence message over the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's late supreme leader.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in recent years, has embraced the idea of a “new Cold War” and attempted to expand cooperation with countries confronting the US, including an economic delegation sent to Iran in April 2024.
South Korea plans to send ships and special envoys to Saudi Arabia
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South Korea plans to send at least five ships to Saudi Arabia's Yanbu port in the coming weeks to establish new oil transport routes in the Red Sea.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources said Monday the ships will be deployed in phases beginning in mid-April, and the number of vessels could increase depending on contracts with Saudi partners.
Officials did not disclose the companies involved but said some domestic refiners may use non-Korean shipping firms.
South Korea also plans to send special envoys to Saudi Arabia, Oman and Algeria to step up diplomatic efforts to secure alternative fuel supplies, ruling party lawmaker Ahn Do-geol said.
The foreign ministry did not immediately reveal when the envoys would be sent.
Iran executes a man over the January protests
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Iran has executed another man convicted over charges stemming from the nationwide protests that swept Iran in January.
The judiciary's Mizan news agency identified the man hanged as Ali Fahim in a report on Monday.
It was unclear when he was executed.
Fahim had been convicted of allegedly storming a military base to seize weapons.
Amnesty International said Fahim and others convicted in the case “were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in detention, including beatings, floggings, prolonged solitary confinement, and death threats at gunpoint before being convicted in grossly unfair trials that relied on forced confessions extracted under torture and lasted only a few hours.”
The Human Rights Activist News Agency had said Fahim and others had entered a Tehran base of the all-volunteer Basij militia, an arm of the Revolutionary Guard, after it had been burned, then had been forced into confessions.
Iranian missiles hit central Israel
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Israeli rescue services reported Monday morning that several sites were hit by missiles launched from Iran toward multiple cities in the centre of Israel.
In Petah Tikva, paramedics provided medical treatment to an injured woman in serious condition with a chest injury from shrapnel and evacuated her to the Beilinson Hospital.
Firefighters in that city are handling cars on fire and continue searching to ensure there are no people trapped in the rubble.
In Tel Aviv, a man slightly injured by glass shrapnel was evacuated to the Ichilov Hospital.
Footage provided by the rescue service Magen David Adom shows damage to residential buildings due to the attack.
Meanwhile, Israel's military warned the public Monday morning of another missile barrage coming from Iran, the fourth such alert of the day.
