VIJAYAWADA: CPI general secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy has said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who takes pride in describing demonetisation as a bold move against corruption, should first prove his innocence in the cases pertaining to ‘Sahara and Birla diaries’ seized by the Income Tax Department.
“Till then, Mr. Modi will have no moral right to make tall claims about the much-hyped war on corruption,” Mr. Sudhakar Reddy said at the Meet-the-Press programme organised by A.P. Union of Working Journalists (APUWJ) here on Wednesday.
Mr. Modi was accused of receiving kickbacks from the Sahara and Birla groups when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat, but he neither condemned the allegations nor instituted a probe into them, the CPI leader said.
At least now, Mr. Modi should get the matter investigated by a Special Investigation Team if he was clean, he said.
Mr. Sudhakar Reddy said that the Prime Minister did not have the courage to make a statement on demonetisation in Parliament but managed to obtain a “manufactured consent,” even as the common man continued to suffer because of the “unscientific and poorly implemented decision.”
He alleged that the BJP and Mr. Modi were behind most of the black-money hoarders in the county.
The Modi government had given concessions to companies amounting to nearly Rs.10 lakh crore. Besides, the corporate tax rate was reduced from 30 per cent to 25 per cent. Banks were not allowed to proceed against wilful defaulters even as the dues touched a whopping Rs.14 lakh crore, Mr. Sudhakar Reddy alleged.
He said that the CPI was striving to achieve “broadest unity” among the opposition parties to fight against the NDA Government’s “anti-people policies.”
Mr. Sudhakar Reddy said that the CPI avoided, but not boycotted, the press conference addressed by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday due to lack of clarity on the content.
