Congress targets Centre over electoral bonds, claims 'party fought this battle for 7 yrs'

New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday welcomed the revocation of the contentious electoral bonds by the Supreme Court and said that today's judgment vindicates their long fight against the 'unconstitutional and unlawful' scheme which the NDA government brought and 'misused to fill its coffers for electoral gains'.

Congress in a press statement asserted about its seven year long battle against the 'coercive and corporatised' scheme, inside and outside the Parliament and said that it was the first party to condemn the bonds scheme, in clear and unequivocal terms.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took to his X account to denounce the bonds scheme as Modi government's 'ploy' to gain political mileage over rivals by 'monopolising' the electoral funding by big players.

"Electoral bond is yet another evidence of Modi government's corrupt practices. The BJP made the electoral bonds a medium for taking bribes and commission," he tweeted.

Jairam Ramesh, the Congress Communications In-charge, also lashed out at the BJP and said that the Supreme Court's verdict will now 'reinforce the power of votes over notes'.

"The Supreme Court has held the much-touted electoral bonds scheme of the Modi Sarkar as violative of both laws passed by Parliament as well as the Constitution of India. The long-awaited verdict is hugely welcome and will reinforce the power of votes over notes," Ramesh said.

Congress further said when bonds scheme was notified on January 2, 2018, the grand old party had called a press conference and raised three specific concerns, besides red-flagging its many other 'damaging' aspects.

The three specific contentions of Congress party raised in 2018 were:

a. Electoral bonds would become the most significant enabler of what are known as quid pro-quo deals.

b. With the removal of the cap on political funding from corporates, electoral bonds would allow for dubious funding to thrive.

c. The argument of anonymity was deliberately designed to mislead.

The Congress added that it was now "looking forward to SBI disclosing all the details of political funding received by all political parties and also the Election Commission publishing the same" in compliance with apex court's directions.

It claimed that BJP is the biggest beneficiary of the electoral bonds, having collated more than 95 per cent of funding 'in garb of anonymous donations'.

It also shared concerns over Centre's integrity in following the Supreme Court's orders.

"The question that arises is; will the Modi government comply or will it issue another ordinance to try and circumvent the directions of the Supreme Court?," Congress asked in an official statement.