On Friday, Congress claimed that the Income Tax department has frozen its bank accounts including Youth Congress' account and asked for a recovery amount of Rs 210 crores. A press conference took place earlier on Friday, where party treasurer Ajay Maken said that the Congress' accounts has been frozen weeks before the election.
In the press conference, Ajay Maken mentioned that their accounts have been frozen based on a delay in filing 2018-19 Income Tax Returns. Maken said that there are two reasons for it and one of them is that they had to submit their account by December 31, 2019 but there was a delay of40-45 days.
Maken said in the press conference that the second reason is that 2018-19 was the year of election and the Congress received a total of Rs 199 crore which was spent on the elections.
He said, "from that, only Rs 14 lakh 40 thousand were given in cash by our Congress MPs and MLAs. They submitted their one-month salary in cash. And just because we submitted Rs 14 lakh 40 thousand in cash, we now have a penalty of Rs 210 crore. After five years, they've frozen all our accounts just two weeks before the announcement of the election."
However, just an hour after Congress made the announcement, their accounts were unfrozen after the party filed an appeal with the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) in Delhi.
Also watch: Ajay Maken: Congress bank accounts frozen, Income Tax asks Rs 210 in recovery