GOPs of two great democracies cash strapped before elections in their countries -- USA (November) India (April) 2024
Two Grand Old Parties across the seas are getting
cash strapped – GOP in USA controlled by Republican Donald Trump & the GOP
Congress controlled by the Gandhi family in INDIA
By Ashe N Ayer
By a strange coincidence two Grand Old Parties
(GOPs) across the Indian and the Atlantic & Pacific Oceans are getting cash
strapped for different reasons ahead of the 2024 elections – one in India to
elect a new government and in the USA to elect a New President.
Both elections are being fiercely fought with Donald Trump getting cash strapped and his family controlling the GOP being asked to shell out a whopping $464 million ( Rs 37.10 billion) now reduced to $179 million ( Rs 14.30 billion) by an appeals court to post a bond to appeal against the New York Manhattan court that imposed the fine finding him guilty of inflating his assets to secure huge loans fraudulently from Deutsche bank and discounted insurance premia. Attorney General Ms Letitia James sought to seize Trumps properties if he failed to post the bond.
Trump pleaded his inability to post the bond as he was cash strapped as he also had to pay libel damages to Author Jean E Carrol to the tune of $ 83.3 million ( Rs 6.60 billion) and went to the appeals court which reduced the bond value to $179 million.
Speculation was rife in political circles in the USA
that Saudi Arabia, a partner in the ARAMCO oil joint venture of the US in Saudi
would lend him the money as also Russian oligarchs would bail him out. But none
of that happened really.
The Saudi Businessman Talal who bailed out Trump to the tune of $900 million .
Shift to India: The Grand Old Party of India , the Congress , which won independence for the country, and ruled for well over 60 of the 75 years , has gone virtually broke ahead of the April 19th General Elections – the vote for a new government and a new 18th Lok Sabha. The Congress was slapped with a $2.3 billion ( Rs 1,823 crore ) tax notice in terms of arrears for not paying taxes under different categories on assets on which it had been earning interest monies. The Congress claimed last night that it had received another two notices from the Internal Revenue Services (IRS – Income Tax Department in India).
The
Congress party has alleged receiving two more notices from the Income Tax
Department on Friday night, a day after it received ₹1,800 crore notices.
According to an India Today report, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said,
"Two more notices were sent to us last night". He reiterated that
Congress was a target of "tax terrorism". The party claimed that the
I-T department slapped a notice, asking them to pay around ₹1,823 crore on
Friday.
According
to Congress leaders, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is also accused of
"serious violation" for which it should be penalised to the tune
of ₹4,600 crore. However, the income tax sleuths are only targeting the opposition,
the Congress alleged.
The Income Tax department however maintained that the Congress had been
ignoring its tax notice for several years and that’s how the taxes have
multiplied with penalties over the years into huge arrears.
‘Modi govt wants to
strangulate opposition financially’, Congress attacks BJP
The
left parties - CPI and CPI-M - were also caught up in similar tax nets with the
CPI saying it had received a notice from the Income Tax department for using an
old PAN card. The I-T department has sent a tax recovery notice of ₹15.59
crore to the left parties for not declaring a bank account in its tax returns
for 2016-17. Trinamool Congress leader Saket Gokhale also claimed he has
received 11 I-T notices in the last 72 hours.
With elections around the corner, Congress accused the BJP-led government of misusing institutions like the income-tax department, ED, and CBI to subvert democracy.
Congress slapped with ₹1,700 crore demand notice by I-T dept: Congress party President Mallikarjun Kharge alleged
that the Centre was weaponising the income tax department against the principal
opposition party. The Congress has just 52 seats in the Lok Sabha failing to
qualify individually as an main opposition party but with allies it had over 98
seats.
Psephologists
predict that INDIA alliance could secure a maximum of 170 seats across the
country while BJP could get 300 to 320 seats against its claim of 370 seats plus
allies 30 seats to 400 seats.
No
party has crossed 400 seats out of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha barring the
Congress which secured 423 seats with its allies under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi riding on a
sympathy wave of the assassination of the then Prime Minister Mrs Gandhi by two of her sikh security guards as an act
of revenge for what the sikh community called sacrilege in allowing the Indian
army to run tanks through the Golden Temple at Amritsar in Punjab to ferret out
terrorist Bindranwale and his associates.
Kharge
said a penalty of ₹54 crore has been imposed by the I-T authorities for
the year 1993-94, ₹182 crore for 2016-17, ₹179 crore for
2017-18, ₹918 crore for 2018-19 and ₹480 crore for 2019-20. "Efforts
are being made to financially cripple the Congress, but we are not going to be
cowed down," Congress leader ' Jairam Ramesh said.
Tax department could
demand ₹500 crore
from Congress in reassessment order: While the Congress leaders
claimed that it was a tax-exempted party, sources told PTI news agency said the
party lost that privilege in 2018-19 due to extensive use of cash in the
electoral process. The source told the
agency that during the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the I-T department launched a
search operation and found extensive use of cash. Thereafter, assessments were
reopened for seven years (AY 2014-15 to AY 2020-21).
Following
the assessment, demand was raised in 2021 and communications to pay demand were
sent many times. Later recovery proceedings under Section 226(3) of the Act
were undertaken, the source pointed out.
The Campaign for 2024 18th Lok Sabha: With the Lok Sabha poll campaign gaining momentum,
the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Congress-led Indian National
Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will hold massive rallies respectively
in Meerut and Delhi. While Narendra Modi will lead the rally in Meerut this
evening, Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge will lead the rally in Delhi from
10 am onwards. This is the first grand show of strength by the BJP and Congress
in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls per media reports.
Modi's Meerut Show
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the NDA rally in Meerut where there will be a gathering of key BJP leaders and its allies. BJP's Meerut candidate Arun Govil, who essayed the role of Lord Ram in the epic TV serial Ramayan, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and other senior BJP leaders will be also present during the rally. The ruling BJP hops to send out a message to Western Uttar Pradesh where Jayant Chaudhary's RLD has a greater influence. According to reports, people from nearby Baghpat, Bijnor, Muzaffarnagar and Kairana will also participate in the rally. This is the BJP's first big rally in Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls.
Congress campaigns, Constitution, Kejriwal: The INDIA bloc's rally comes amid the arrest of Aam Aadmi Party convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. While AAP has claimed that the rally is against Kejriwal's arrest, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that the rally is not of one party but of the INDIA bloc and the main motive of the gathering is to protect the constitution. Ramesh said that the rally would not be a one-party rally but to save the democracy of the country. Jharkhand Chief Minister Champai Soren will be present at the rally. Leaders of the INDIA bloc including Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray, Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, Derek O' Brien, Farooq Abdullah, DMK MP, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, Jharkhand CM Champai Soren and Kalpana Soren will be present during the rally.
Lok Sabha
Elections 2024: Voting for the Lok Sabha polls will be held in seven phases starting
April 19 and the counting of votes will take place on June 4. Meerut, Baghpat
and Ghaziabad are among the seats that will go to the polls on April 26. On the
other hand, the seven constituencies in the national capital will go to the
polls on May 25. Jharkhand will go to the polls in the last four phases - May
13, 20, 25 and June 1.
CONGRESS USES X ALT TEXT TO HIT OUT AT PM MODI OVER
ELECTORAL BONDS. WHAT IS IT? HERE'S HOW TO USE IN TWEETS
Congress took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over electoral bonds
by using this lesser-used feature of X.
Indian National Congress hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday while claiming that he runs an 'extortion racket'. This is along the lines of what Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said. Gandhi accused PM Modi of “running the world’s largest extortion racket.” If we look at just the post of Congress then we won't find anything in it as it is just an image of an arrow pointing downwards. There isn't even any caption through which we could've understood that it's an attack on the BJP. But the actual message of the post will be revealed when you click on its 'Alt Text'. A number of users were left clueless as to what the Congress posted because they didn't think of clicking on the comparatively less-used feature, 'Alt Text'. Let us have a look at what the post actually said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the meantime attacked the Congress saying it gave the katchatheevu island that separates India from Sri Lanka on a platter. Prime Minister Modi accused Congress on Sunday of "callously" handing over the Katchatheevu island to Sri Lanka in 1974. Modi's criticism came after recent revelations brought to light by a Right To Information (RTI) application by Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai, exposing the Congress-led government's contentious decision under former prime minister Indira Gandhi's government.
In a post on social media platform X, PM Modi expressed shock and
anger, stating that the Congress party's actions have severely compromised
India's integrity and national interests. "Eye-opening and startling! New
facts reveal how Congress callously gave away Katchatheevu. This has angered
every Indian and reaffirmed in people’s minds - we can’t ever trust Congress!
Weakening India’s unity, integrity, and interests has been Congress’ way of
working for 75 years and counting," Modi wrote on X. Congress has actually
ruled for only 50 years against opposition’s 25 under VP Singh, Chandrasekhar, Dee Gowda, IK Gujral and Vajpayee.
Rahul Gandhi Accuses PM Modi Of Running Extortion Racket: Gandhi
alleged that the funds that were amassed through the now-scrapped scheme
(Electoral Bonds) were used to break/split political parties like the Shiv Sena
and the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra. He also accused PM Modi and
the saffron party of toppling Opposition governments. During an interaction
with the media in Thane on the 62nd day of his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, Gandhi
expressed his view that the opaque electoral bonds system was created to favour
the ruling party. History shows that Mrs Gandhi had also topped opposition
governments during her time.
Now it turns out that this is a way of extorting money from India’s
largest corporates. A way of stealing money from the biggest contracts in the
country, and intimidating corporates and forcing them to give money to the BJP.
Electoral bonds is the world’s biggest corruption scam and extortion racket run
by the Prime Minister of India."
What Is Electoral Bond: Launched in 2017, electoral bonds permitted individuals and corporate entities to contribute unrestricted funds to any political party without revealing their identities. These bonds, part of the electoral bond scheme, were acquired by donors in predetermined denominations from SBI and then presented to any political party for encashment.
The electoral bonds did not mandate the recipient political parties to reveal the identity of the donor to anyone, including the Election Commission of India (ECI).
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