Congress’ General Secretary-in-charge of Communications, Jairam Ramesh, launched a blistering attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 1 for defending the now-defunct electoral bonds scheme. PM Modi, in an interview with Tamil channel Thanthi TV on March 31, staunchly justified the scheme, claiming it aided in tracing the source of funding for political parties.
“People who are protesting against the electoral bonds will soon regret it. Before 2014, there was no trail of the funds given to political parties during elections,” PM Modi asserted.
“Thanks to electoral bonds, we can now trace the source of funding. Nothing is perfect; imperfections can be addressed,” the PM further remarked.
However, Congress’ senior leader criticized PM Modi’s statements.
“Every single day, the Prime Minister scales new heights of hypocrisy and plumbs new depths of dishonesty,” he expressed on X (formerly Twitter), using the hashtag #ElectoralBondScam.
“The Prime Minister has completely lied to the nation in his latest interview to a Tamil television channel. He claims that ‘where funds have come from, how they are being used’ is only known due to the Electoral Bond Scheme instituted by him,” he added.
The seasoned leader of the Grand Old Party then detailed the timeline of the electoral bonds scheme, introduced to keep political donations confidential and prevent public knowledge of donor identities and political party spending from 2018 to 2024, he observed.
The Supreme Court, in 2024, declared the scheme unconstitutional and ordered the disclosure of donation details. Despite initial resistance and claims of lacking data by the State Bank of India, the court’s directive led to the swift release of the information to the public, Ramesh added.
“The corruption of the Modi Sarkar has been known for a while now; the setback is that there are now hard numbers to prove it,” the Congress leader noted.
“Unfortunately, we can expect the Prime Minister to continue his full-time job of lying to the Indian people to cover it up,” he concluded.
