PNS | Hyderabad
Amid the Income Tax (I-T) raids in Karnataka which reportedly found Rs 42 crore in cash, Telangana’s ruling party BRS on Friday said that the Congress is trying to pump money into the Telangana Assembly elections.
Finance Minister T. Harish Rao said that the Congress is planning to pump in Rs 1,500 crore by collecting commissions from builders and gold merchants in Bengaluru. The BRS leader said that the Congress wants to buy voters in Telangana with bribes collected from Karnataka. He said earlier when the BJP was in power in Karnataka, it used to collect a commission of 40 per cent from contractors but after the Congress came to power the commission has gone up to 50 per cent.
Harish was reacting to reports of I-T raids in Bengaluru. I-T officials reportedly found cash worth Rs 42 crore in the house of a contractor. “The Congress depends on money bags. The intellectual and political bankruptcy of the Congress has been exposed. Rs 42 crore was found in the house of ordinary corporator in Karnataka and it was meant for TS elections. Unofficial information says Rs 8 crore has reached Kodangal from Karnataka. The Congress wants to buy the people of Telangana like goods in the market,” he said.
Earlier, BRS working president KT Rama Rao said on September 30 that the Congress government in Karnataka was levying ‘political election tax’ on Bengaluru builders to fund the party in Telangana. He had said that Karnataka’s Congress government had started levying a “political election tax” of Rs 500 per square foot on Bengaluru builders to fund the Telangana Congress.
He had told a public meeting that the Congress was getting money from Karnataka and Chhattisgarh and was spending it in Telangana to woo voters. Elections to the 119-member Telangana Assembly are scheduled on November 30. The leaders of the Congress have said that they are confident that the party will repeat its Karnataka performance in Telangana and storm to power.
