G. Ramakrishnan, CPI (M) Polit Bureau Member called Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party the most corrupt in the world and that the Supreme Court striking down the Electoral Bonds was a testament to that.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited the State seven times after elections were announced, but not once when the State was reeling under the floods, Mr Ramakrishnan said, here on Wednesday.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of his campaign for Dharmapuri’s DMK candidate A. Mani, the CPM leader said, normally any Prime Minister would at least visit a disaster-struck State. But this Prime Minister neither visited Tamil Nadu nor Manipur that was burning in violence, where people were killed.
Slamming Mr. Modi’s claims in his recent speech that the INDIA alliance wanted to win the elections solely to protect the corrupt, Mr. Ramakrishnan said, it has been widely proven that the BJP was the most corrupt party in the world and that it legalised corruption as was revealed in the Supreme Court striking down the Electoral Bonds flagging them as a means to corruption. This only attested to the corruption of the BJP even from the highest court.
The BJP introduced Electoral bonds for political funding in 2017, by amending 5 laws – Income Tax Act, Representation of People’s Act, company law, FERA Act, and the RBI Act and at one go, weakened the Right to Information Act, Mr. Ramakrishnan said.
By this, the BJP turned the ED, Income Tax Department, and the CBI into its own musclemen.
Explaining the corruption intrinsic to the scheme of Electoral Bonds, Mr. Ramakrishnan pointed the Supreme Court flagging quid pro quo built into the scheme. “If a company failed to contribute to the BJP, these three agencies would raid the companies. Over 38 companies won 179 contracts to the tune of ₹2.80 lakh crore and of the total contributions of ₹16,492 crore, ₹8,252 crore went to the BJP. This was Modigate,” the CPM leader said.
Mr. Ramakrishnan slammed Modi for deflecting attention from his party’s corruption through electoral bonds, by arresting Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Jharkhand’s former Chief Minister Hemant Soren and freezing the accounts of the Congress.
Mocking the pitch of “Modi Guarantee” of the BJP, “have they given the two crore jobs per year they had promised a decade ago? Did they double farm incomes as promised, did they bring black money back into the country?” Mr. Ramakrishnan asked.
In Tamil Nadu, AAIDMK today claims to oppose the BJP. But AIADMK under Edappadi Palaniswami supported each and every policy and unjust laws of the BJP including the CAA and the scrapping of Article 370.
In the last decade, the household debt in the country has gone up from 23% of the GDP in 2014 to 40% of the GDP and signals fall into individual income. India is officially a country with highest economic disparity in the world. This is the backdrop and this is why BJP should not come back to power, Mr. Ramakrishnan said.
About PMK’s claims to reservations for the MBCs, the CPM leader said, Tamil Nadu has reservations upto to 69% and this was because of the Dravidian movement, which made the biggest contribution to Reservations. “Under Mr.Karunanidhi, close to 20% was given to MBCs. In 1952, the first amendment to the Constitution was the reservation for the Backward classes. Was PMK present in 1952,” asked Mr.Ramakrishnan.
He also rubbished PMK’s claims that its alliance with the BJP as a continuity from the previous elections. “Then why did the PMK simultaneously hold talks with the AIADMK. Everybody knew C. Ve. Shanmugam (AIADMK) held talks with the PMK,” Mr. Ramakrishnan said.
