Agartala: Senior Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman announced on Friday that his party would resort to crowdfunding to accumulate funds for the party’s election campaign. He stated that they were compelled to make such appeals as the party had been facing financial constraints due to losing access to bank accounts.
Briefing the media at Congress Bhavan in Agartala, Barman said, “The bank accounts of the Congress party were frozen citing trivial reasons. As our central leadership tried to highlight, it was an attempt to cripple the party financially at a time when the polls were announced. The central leadership is unable to transfer funds to the party candidates for the election related expenditure.
At this juncture, we don’t have any other option but to adopt the method of crowdfunding. We are appealing to people from all sections of society; please donate to the Congress so that we can become your voice.”
The party, however, didn’t mention any specific amount for the donation, leaving the decision to the goodwill of the donors.
“We are not asking for any fixed amount of money. This is an appeal to the masses consisting of day wage laborers, farmers, teachers, employees, businessmen, et al. This money will be spent only for election purposes,” he added, stating that funds in the bank account belonging to the Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee have already dried up.
Referring to the electoral bond data, the Congress leader alleged that it was the BJP that should be prosecuted for bringing a scheme like electoral bond which paved the way for the biggest corruption in the world.
“To mention a few, a company donated Rs 966 crore to the BJP through electoral bonds and in return got awarded a Rs 14,400 crore tunnel construction project. Many corporate entities bought electoral bonds for the BJP and got rewarded with contracts. Unfortunately, the agencies see no corruption there. Only the leaders of opposition parties are on the radar of the ED and CBI round the year,” said Barman.
The Congress party also condemned the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
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