Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Lanka Dinakar has alleged that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is making allegations against the PM CARES fund only with malafide intentions, to divert the public attention from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"Congress leaders are unable to digest the name and fame that PM Modi has achieved in handling the COVID-19 situation. Now Congress is criticizing PM Modi for the sake of political advantage," said Dinakar.
"PM Modi had already established PM CARES fund as a trust to provide medical assistance for the BPL families and use this specific fund for upgrading the medical infrastructure by involving the donors voluntarily," he added.
The BJP leader further quoted that the first trust was formed by PM in 1948 when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime minister of India, for the assistance of displaced persons from Pakistan. Later, it has been continuing for providing assistance to many.
"Further, the audit of the PMNRF comes under the purview of Independent Auditors duly qualified as per the guidelines of ICAI and there is no scope for CAG to audit the accounts of PMNRF since there is no Statutory Receipts and Payments exists as the contributions as donations are voluntary from the donors and no budgetary source or source from PSU Financial Statements are not accepted. Hence, PMNRF out of the ambit of the RTI," said Dinakar.
"The PM CARES was incorporated as a Trust for serving the needs of COVID-19 situation and apply the funds collected for upgrading medical infrastructure. Already 3,100 crores were utilised for ventilators, vaccine development and migrant labourers relief across the nation through this fund and Union Government has committed to use the funds to combat the uncertainty around COVID-19," he added.
The funds of PM CARES is subject to Audit of Independent Auditors similarly PMNRF as both are Trusts under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister and there is no scope of Audit within the ambit of CAG for PM CARES like PMNRF, he added.
"When the purpose of the Trust and utilisation of funds are specifically designed for COVID-19, it is unrealistic to make allegations against the Union Government and the Nehru Parivar should give answers that how much PMNRF has been diverted by the Congress Governance period since 1948 and what kind of Audit procedures had carried for it, whether PMNRF had been audited through CAG during their period," said Dinakar.
BJP never played blame games around the relief operations for the needy people at the time of catastrophe at any point of time, said Dinakar.
Dinakar said that now Congress and their family's true colours are coming out during the pandemic to create confusion among the people rather than to contribute efforts positively to come over from COVID-19 crisis.
( With inputs from ANI )