BJP Adopted ‘Prepaid, Postpaid, Post-Raid’ Corruption Methods: Congress

New Delhi, March 23: Continuing with its aggressive campaign against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on electoral bond scheme and the humongous money they accumulated, the Congress today released an in house ‘Python’ computer code, which has helped in decoding the details of the Electoral Bond donations, within 15 seconds, the process for which State Bank of India had sought time till June 30.

The party also said the “pre-paid”, “post-paid” and “post-raid” methods adopted by the BJP in collecting donations from the corporate groups.

Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here today, the party general secretary in charge Communications Jairam Ramesh gave complete details and explained the break up of the four ways the BJP collected money.  “PM Modi has given legal status to corruption through Electoral Bonds”, he remarked.

Jairam Ramesh gave the break up of the four methods as, “ ‘Chanda Do, Dhanda Lo’ i.e. Prepaid Bribe, ‘Theka Lo, Rishwat Do’ i.e. Postpaid Bribe, ‘Hafta Vasooli’ i.e. Extortion / Post-raid Bribe and ‘Farzi Company’ i.e. Shell Companies.

He said, under the “Chanda do, dhanda lo”, the “prepaid” method of collecting money, the companies would first make donations and then get various types of work and projects.

Ramesh revealed that 38 corporate groups which have got 179 major contracts and projects approvals from the Central or BJP state governments have donated Rs 2004 crores to the BJP through electoral bonds.

He disclosed that under this method, Rs 551 crores in donations were given to the BJP in exchange for projects worth Rs 1.32 lakh crores in contracts/projects. Approvals were given by Central or BJP state governments within 3 months of the donation, he added.

Under ‘Theka Lo, Rishwat Do’, which he described as “Postpaid Bribe”, he said, Rs 62,000 crores worth contracts/project approvals were given by Central or BJP state governments, for which Rs 580 crores of “Postpaid Bribe” (in the form of electoral bonds) were given to the BJP within 3 months after approval/contract.

Under “Hafta Vasooli” (extortion), which Ramesh described as “post-raid” bribe, 41 corporate groups have faced a total of 56 ED/CBI/IT raids and have given Rs 2,592 crore to the BJP, of which Rs. 1,853 crore was given after the raids.

Blasting the claims of Prime Minister Modi that he will not allow shell companies to function, the Congress general secretary revealed that the same shell companies had donated 419 crore to the BJP, out of 543 crore donated by shell companies in total.

He said these included companies on a finance ministry high risk watch list for money laundering, companies donating crores within months of their formation, and companies donating many multiples of their paid-up share capital.

Alleging that the Prime Minister who was not prepared to grant legal status to MSP, had granted “legal status to corruption” by way of electoral bonds, he disclosed that the matched database of the electoral bond donors and the recipients, when combined with publicly available information on contracts, project clearances, raids and other similar events, prima facie paints a clear and sordid picture of “legalisation of corruption”.

“The opaque scheme ensured that prepaid bribes, postpaid bribes and even post-raid bribes could now be routed through the banking channel as electoral bonds. Essentially, this is the Prime Minister who gave a guarantee of ‘bringing back black money’, instead legalised corruption and then desperately trying to hide it”, he observed.

Ramesh clarified that the Congress party’s target was not the private companies, but the Modi government, which misused its power to extort money from them.

He said, Congress believes that private investment is important for economic and GDP growth. He said, during the ten years of UPA the private investment was higher than what it was during the NDA regime.

He said the Congress party was always against the electoral bond system and has promised in its 2019 Election Manifesto that these will be scrapped as these provide undue advantage to the party in power.

He said, once the ‘INDIA’ government will be formed it will probe the electoral bonds, as also the “PM Cares” funds. Besides, he added, a JPC probe will be instituted against the “Modani” companies.