'PM is champion of corruption': Rahul Gandhi claims Modi interview 'scripted'

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav during a meeting on the sidelines of their joint press conference.

Ghaziabad: Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi “the champion on corruption’. Reacting to PM Modi’s recent remarks on the electoral bonds scheme in an interview, Gandhi described the scrapped scheme as the “biggest extortion scheme in the world”.

Addressing a joint press conference with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Rahul Gandhi called PM Modi’s interview to ANI “scripted and a flopshow”.

“A few days ago, the Prime Minister gave a very long interview to ANI. It was scripted, but it was a flop show. The Prime Minister tried to explain electoral bonds in it. The Prime Minister says that the system of electoral bonds was brought for transparency, to clean politics. If this is true then why was that system cancelled by the Supreme Court. And secondly, if you wanted to bring transparency then why did you hide the names of those who gave money to BJP. And why did you hide the dates on which they gave you the money?,” Rahul Gandhi said.

The electoral bonds scheme was scrapped by the Supreme Court last month.

“This is the biggest extortion scheme in the world. All the businessmen of India understand and know this and no matter how much clarification the Prime Minister wants to give, it will not make any difference. Because the entire country knows that the Prime Minister is the champion of corruption,” he added.

What PM Modi said on electoral bonds

In the interview, PM Narendra Modi had accused the Opposition of spreading lies on the electoral bonds scheme and said that “everyone will regret it when there is an honest reflection”.

PM Modi said the scheme was formulated with the aim of curbing black money in politics.

“There has been a discussion in our country for a long time that (through) black money is a dangerous game in elections. The play of black money in the country’s elections ends, this discussion has been going on for a long time. Money is spent in elections; no one can deny this. My party also spends, all parties, candidates spend and money has to be taken from people. I wanted us to try something, how can our elections be free from this black money, how can there be transparency? There was a pure thought in my mind. We were looking for a way. We found a small way, we never claimed that this was the absolute way,” he added.

PM Modi pointed out that out of the total donations made by the 16 companies that bought electoral bonds after action by probe agencies, only 37 per cent of the amount went to the BJP and 63 per cent to Opposition parties.

“I remember in the nineties, BJP faced a lot of problems; there was no money as we had this rule. Those wanting to give did not have courage to do so…I was aware of all this…. now see, if there was no electoral bond, which system has power to find out how the money came and where it went… This is the success story of electoral bonds, there were electoral bonds, so you are getting a trail of which company gave, how it gave, where it gave. Whether what happened in the process was good or bad can be an issue of debate….I never say that there is no shortcoming in decision-making. We learn after discussing and improving. There is a lot of scope of improvement in this also. But today we have completely pushed the country towards black money, hence I say everyone will regret it. When they will think honestly, everyone will regret it,” he added.

Election of ideology: Rahul Gandhi

At the presser, Rahul Gandhi said the Lok Sabha elections are the election of ideology. He also claimed that the BJP and the RSS were destroying the Constitution.

“On the one hand, RSS and BJP are trying to destroy the Constitution and the democratic system, and on the other hand, the INDIA alliance and Congress Party are trying to defend and protect the Constitution and democracy. There are 2-3 big issues in the elections. Unemployment is the biggest and inflation is the second biggest but BJP is engaged in creating distractions…Neither the Prime Minister nor the BJP talks about the issues,” he claimed.

Akhilesh Yadav claims BJP to win 150 seats

Rahul Gandhi’s INDIA bloc ally Akhilesh Yadav claimed that the BJP would be reduced to 150 seats in the Lok Sabha. He claimed there was a strong undercurrent for the INDIA bloc.

“We have to ensure not a single vote is divided in LS polls.. Winds of change will blow from western UP, INDIA bloc will wipe out BJP from Ghaziabad to Ghazipur,” he said.

With inputs from PTI, ANI

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