New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday launched a scathing attack on the Central government over the Income Tax raids on two media organisations, calling the development a "blot on Indian democracy".
The I-T department had on Thursday conducted searches in the offices of Dainik Bhaskar Group and Bharat Samachar in various locations on charges of dubious financial transactions and tax evasion.
Senior spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Thursday said, "The IT raid on Dainik Bhaskar highlights the dangerous, dismissive, and draconian nature of the BJP government. How should we define whatever happened today? There are many words... totalitarianism, tyranny, dictatorship, fascism, authoritarianism, autocracy, despotism and so on."
"Instead of protecting the nation, the central agencies have begun to act as poachers to intimidate whistleblowers," he said.
Also read: Income Tax department raids offices of Dainik Bhaskar group
The Congress alleged that the government used the I-T department to raid the offices of Dainik Bhaskar group as the organisation had put out a series of reports that were critical of the governmment's handling of COVID-19. Singhvi cited a report from the Bhopal edition of Dainik Bhaskar newspaper that contradicted the Centre's recent response in Parliament that no state reported any death due to lack of oxygen during the second wave of the pandemic. The report claimed that in Madhya Pradesh alone, 60 people had died due to oxygen shortage.
The Congress also raised the issue of raids at other media channels, including Bharat Samachar, Newsclick, The Wire, The Quint and NDTV.
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"We are talking of a grotesque pattern distorting the foundation of our democracy. We condemn this, we expose this. We call upon every civil society to raise this. This requires a sustained campaign and a complete and total condemnation," Singhvi said.
Reacting on TMC MP Shantanu Sen's act of snatching IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's papers on 'Pegasus' and tearing them down, Singhvi said, "I don't think any political party supports anything that violates the Parliamentary House or the Constitutional principles. When you have an extremely inflammatory atmosphere created by repeated denials of permission to discuss, things go a little out of hand."
