New Delhi, Oct 18 (Representative) The Congress on Friday alleged that the Mahayuti government in Maharashtra privileged certain companies in infra tenders in return for campaign finance donations, costing the taxpayer at least Rs 10,903 crores.Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here, party leader Pawan Khera said that these Rs 10,000 crores belong to the people of Maharashtra, which has been given to the government in the form of tax. He asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari will answer for the Electoral Bonds Scam which duped the people of Maharashtra of thousands of crores?Khera alleged that BJP brought the Electoral Bonds Scheme to tunnel funds in exchange for large-scale projects. The Congress leader said, “Earlier, the scheme of ‘donate and take business’ was going on, which was stopped by the Supreme Court. Ever since the court has stopped their scheme, new schemes are being made to collect money. When tenders are issued, there are many parameters for it, which are made keeping many guidelines in mind, but all these parameters were changed.”
He alleged that “critical criterial changes were made to award most packages to few entities”.Khera claimed that the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) changed pre-qualification criteria for infrastructure projects. The rule of limiting one bidder to a maximum of two projects was changed, and two companies were given four projects each. “Another criteria is – the company should have experience in tunnel construction, whereas in these projects tunnel construction work is only 10 percent. Still, the name of the project was changed to Tunnel so that the work could be given to these companies. Even 13 percent of the donations in electoral bonds were collected from Maharashtra. There was a time when there was ‘D Company’… but today in Modi rule, ‘B Company’ has come, which is looting Maharashtra.” he alleged. Calling it as a ‘loot by the BJP’, the Congress leader said, “The per kilometer cost for construction was allocated by other states and NHAI. In Maharashtra this cost was doubled. The government took Rs 10,000 crore out of the pockets of Maharashtra’s tax payers and gave it to the companies and took it back from them with the other hand.