India’s largest opposition celebration accused the nationwide authorities on Thursday of paralyzing its political actions by blocking the celebration’s entry to its financial institution accounts, in what it described as a heavy-handed response to a tax dispute simply weeks earlier than a pivotal common election.
Officers with the celebration, the Indian Nationwide Congress, mentioned that eight of its 11 major accounts at 4 banks had been frozen, and that there was no clear indication of when the celebration would regain entry to the cash.
“We are able to’t assist our staff; we are able to’t assist our candidates,” Rahul Gandhi, an Indian Nationwide Congress chief, mentioned at a information convention in New Delhi. “Our leaders can’t fly. Overlook flying — they will’t take a practice.”
“Our potential to battle elections has been broken,” he mentioned.
Campaigning is heating up for a six-week-long election that begins on April 19 and can decide the following prime minister for the world’s most populous democracy. To run election campaigns from the Himalayan mountains to India’s southern shores, political teams spend billions of {dollars} in what’s seen as one of many world’s costliest elections.
Underneath Indian regulation, political teams are exempted from paying revenue taxes on their funding from people and firms, however should declare their revenue to the tax authorities annually. The present dispute pertains to how closely the Indian Nationwide Congress ought to be penalized for previous irregularities.
Final month, the nation’s Revenue Tax Division, which is managed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities, froze the Congress celebration’s accounts on accusations that it had been 45 days late in submitting tax returns on its money contributions for the 2017-18 monetary 12 months. The division additionally took from the celebration’s financial institution accounts $2 million of the $16 million that it mentioned was owed in penalties.
The Congress celebration has acknowledged submitting the tax returns late, however argues that the penalty ought to be within the 1000’s of {dollars} somewhat than tens of millions.
Final week, a Delhi excessive courtroom declined to intervene with the tax authorities’ order, saying that it was unable to cease the authorities from freezing the celebration’s accounts.
Lately, opposition teams have accused Mr. Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Celebration of building a close to monopoly over political funding. They accuse Mr. Modi of utilizing the powers of his workplace to complement his celebration and dry up funding for rivals.
Leaders within the Congress celebration mentioned that freezing its accounts so near the elections was a political transfer aimed toward crippling India’s major opposition group and pushing the nation towards one-party rule.
“The concept that India is a democracy is a lie,” Mr. Gandhi mentioned.
Mr. Modi’s officers rejected these claims, describing them as a determined try by a political opposition that’s struggling in an election marketing campaign that’s prone to return the B.J.P. to energy.
Ravi Shankar Prasad, a frontrunner from the governing celebration, mentioned the tax exemption for any political group remained legitimate provided that the group declared any contributions to the nationwide tax authorities on time.
“In utter desperation of imminent defeat, the Congress celebration on the highest degree sought to create an alibi immediately,” Mr. Prasad mentioned on Thursday.
The problem of political financing has exploded in India in current weeks. The nation’s prime courtroom not too long ago compelled the government-owned State Financial institution of India to launch an inventory of all those that had made nameless political donations via a financing mechanism often called “electoral bonds,” eradicating a veil of secrecy that opposition teams had lengthy argued was serving to these in energy.
Mr. Modi’s celebration obtained the best quantity of the funds, greater than 10 instances that going to the Indian Nationwide Congress.
