‘Rs 48,20,69,00,00,000 looted in 70 yrs’: BJP targets Congress ‘corruption’ in video campaign

Tweeting the video via its official handle, the BJP said, "In the first episode of Congress Files, watch how corruption and scams happened one after the other in the Congress rule…" (Screengrab)

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‘Rs 48,20,69,00,00,000 looted in 70 yrs’: BJP targets Congress ‘corruption’ in video campaign

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Firing a fresh salvo at the Congress, the BJP Sunday released the first episode of a video series titled “Congress Files” in which it alleged that corruptions and scams were rampant during the rule of the grand old party. Though some Congress supporters and Twitter handles of organisations allied to it fired back at the BJP, the party’s senior leadership has not responded to the video.

Tweeting the video via its official handle, the BJP said, “In the first episode of Congress Files, watch how corruption and scams happened one after the other in the Congress rule…”

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In the 184-second-long episode, titled “Congress means corruption”, the ruling party alleged, “Congress has looted Rs 48,20,69,00,00,000 from the public in 70 years of its rule. That money could have been utilised for so many useful areas of security and development.”

Congress Files के पहले एपिसोड में देखिए, कैसे कांग्रेस राज में एक के बाद एक भ्रष्टाचार और घोटाले हुए… pic.twitter.com/vAZ7BDZtFi

— BJP (@BJP4India) April 2, 2023

The party said 24 INS Vikrants, 300 Rafale jets, and 1,000 Mangal Missions could have been purchased or funded with that amount and alleged that due to Congress’s “corruption,” the country lags in the race to progress.

Dubbing the Congress’s tenure from 2004 to 2014 as “the lost decade” — a phrase Prime Minister Narendra Modi used in February during his speech on the Motion of Thanks on President’s address — the BJP lashed out at former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh for “turning a blind eye to the corruption that kept on happening under his rule”.

“In those days, papers were filled with the news of corruption, looking at which the heads of every Indian hung in shame. These included the coal scam of Rs 1.86 lakh crore, the 2G spectrum scam of Rs 1.76 lakh crore, the MNREGA scam of Rs 10 lakh crore, the Commonwealth scam of Rs 70,000 crore, a bribe of Rs 362 crore in the helicopter deal with Italy, and 12-crore bribe for the Chairman of Railway Board,” it added.

“This is only the jhanki (trailer) of Congress’s corruption, the movie is still not over,” the BJP said at the end of the video while giving a sneak peek into the content of the next episode that would focus on Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor’s allegations that he was “forced” to buy an M F Husain painting from Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. In a chargesheet filed recently at a Mumbai court in connection with a money laundering case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said Kapoor told the agency that the sale proceeds were utilised by the Gandhi family for the medical treatment of Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New York.