Nadda, 5 others take oath as RS members
Five others who also took oath as members of the Rajya Sabha today are Ashokrao Shankarrao Chavan, Chunnilal Garasiya, Anil Kumar Yadav Mandadi, Sushmita Dev and Mohammad Nadimul Haque.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) refuted media reports wherein the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had reportedly flagged a mismatch in the party’s actual and reported donations to the Election Commission (EC).
The party demanded that the “electoral bonds scheme” should be withdrawn immediately. Newly elected AAP Rajya Sabha member of Parliament Narain Dass Gupta said that every donation made to the party has been accounted for and all accounts had been shared with Central agencies on many occasions.
“There are no irregularities in the accounts of the party. The media reports on AAP’s donations originating from CBDT have no basis in fact or reality,” Gupta said at a press conference.
Gupta, a former president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), said Section 138 of the Income Tax Act prohibits sharing of information related to a political party’s files.
“The sharing of information to the media by CBDT is in itself a violation of the law,” Gupta said. Gupta said the reason that there was a discrepancy at the end of the Central government’s agencies was that their calculations had been done at different times.
“At party’s end, every single donation coming to party has been accounted for. The facts of this case are being purposefully twisted and misrepresented,” Gupta alleged. Senior leader of the party and national secretary Pankaj Gupta said, “on the one hand the Central Government is talking about making political funding transparent, while at the same time it is working to give statutory validation to electoral bonds which will help keep source of political funding a secret.”
Gupta pointed out the source of funding received by political parties through electoral bonds will be accessible to the nationalised banks, the RBI and the government.
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