The BJP government has started “financial terrorism” against the principal opposition party, he alleged.There are five accounts from which this money has been withdrawn, he claimed.Congress general secretary, organisation, Venugopal, said this action amounts to “attack on democratic principles and values”.”They (government) are trying to shut the voice of the Opposition. This type of low-level attack has never happened in history. We will fight it out,” he said.”Clearly this is an example of dictatorship. The BJP is dragging the largest democracy in the world to a ‘dictatorship raj’,” Venugopal charged.Maken asked whether the BJP has ever paid Income Tax.”Do we have democracy in our country? Is it a level playing field?” he said.”We filed our return on 2nd February, 2019, the proceedings of taking out our money took place five years after, just two weeks before the elections are to be announced,” he said.The turn of events started suddenly when, on February 14 the IT Department issued a notice to four bankers of 11 branches of AICC, Youth Congress and NSUI.The Income tax department has made a demand of more than Rs 210 crore, the party said.Since no bank had such amounts in our accounts, our accounts were virtually frozen and thus inoperable, it said in a statement.”We approached the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, requesting it to grant a stay; the IT officials clarified before the Tribunal that it was an exercise to ‘mark the lien’; thus, the account was not frozen,” the party said.”But brazenly, the IT Department went a step ahead and transferred our funds to the government accounts,” it alleged.
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