Gujarat Congress to hold protests against 'freezing' of bank accounts on Feb 17

Ahmedabad, Feb 16 (IANS) Gujarat Congress will hold a protest demonstration at the Income Tax Circle on Ashram Road in Ahmedabad on February 17 against the "freezing" of bank accounts of Indian National Congress (INC) and the Youth Congress.

The protest will be led by state President Shaktisinh Gohil.

The party’s protest programme comes after the Congress said that its bank accounts, including those of Youth Congress were "frozen" and made inoperative by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT).

However, just an hour later, the party claimed that it was "defrozen" by the I-T department.

Congress called it a BJP government's ploy to disrupt party's election preparations by blocking its funds but the "revelation" by tax authorities on Congress tax liability has cleared the air about the entire "account freeze" row.

Sources in the I-T department termed it a "routine recovery measure", the tax authorities said that recovery made by withdrawing money from accounts is a "routine recovery measure" and the Congress accounts were ‘neither blocked nor stopped’. Also, the party has many more accounts for its activities," they said.

Congress owes an outstanding balance of about Rs 135 crore for the financial year 2018-19 and this includes demand of Rs 103 crore on account of assessment and interest of Rs 32 crore (approximately).

As per the I-T sources privy to information on Congress tax liability, recovery to the tune of Rs 115 crore has been affected by withdrawing money from various bank accounts of INC.

"INC was requested to pay 20 per cent of the total demand (i.e. Rs. 21 crore approx.) as per extant procedure. An amount of Rs 78 lakh only was paid. Since INC failed to pay 20 per cent of the outstanding demand, a letter was issued asking it to pay the balance demand of Rs 104 crore. The appeal filed by INC before CIT (A) was later dismissed," the I-T department further said in a statement.