New Delhi: The BJP on Sunday fired a fresh salvo at the Congress aiming to corner the grand old party on corruption charges ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The saffron party released the first part of the 'Congress Files' on its official Twitter handle alleging that Congress has looted a whooping Rs 48,20,69,00,00,000 from the public during the 70 years it ruled the country.
"In the first episode of Congress Files, watch how corruption and scams happened one after the other in the Congress rule…," Tweeted BJP. It accused the Congress of dragging India down in the race for progress with its corrupt practices arguing that the amount the party had usurped when it was in power could have been used to make India a military force to be reckoned with.
The BJP claimed that with the huge amount 24 INS Vikrant, 300 Rafale jets, and 1000 Mangal Missions could have been procured or executed alleging that the country had to suffer the consequences of alleged corruption by Congress.
" Rs 48,20,69,00,00,000 from the public was looted by the Congress during 70 years of its rule. It could have been used for India's progress in many key sectors. But the country suffered because of Congress's corruption and lagged behind in the race of progress," the BJP stated in its video message.
Taking a cue from an earlier speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi where he dubbed the last tenure of Congress in power from 2004-14 as a "lost decade" BJP said that if only the said period is taken into consideration then it will become clear that it was a "Lost Decade."
It further alleged that at that time the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh turned a blind eye to the scams which took place during his tenure and every Indian hung his head in shame as the newspapers were filled with news of scams and corruption.
" Then the government was led by Manmohan Singh who turned a blind eye to the corruption which was taking place during his tenure. Every Indian hung his head in shame seeing the news of corruption which filled the newspapers," stated the BJP.
It listed several scams which surfaced during the UPA era including the coal scam of Rs 1.86 lakh crore, the 2G Spectrum scam of Rs 1.76 lakh crore, the MNREGA scam of Rs 10 lakh crore, the Commonwealth scam of Rs 70,000 crore, a bribe of Rs 362 crores in the helicopter deal with Italy and Rs 12 crores bribe for the Chairman of Railway Board.
Indicating that the video is only the beginning of a series, the BJP at the end of the message stated " This is only the jhanki (trailer) of Congress' corruption, the movie is still not over." Senior Congress leaders are yet to react to the BJP's charge.
