The country's key opposition Congress party received a blow ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha election with the Income Tax department serving notice of over Rs 1,800 crore to it for alleged discrepancies in tax returns for previous years.

The notice includes penalty and interest for the assessment years from 2017-18 and 2020-21.

The notice was issued soon after the Delhi High Court rejected petitions by the Congress party challenging the initiation of tax reassessment proceedings against it for a period of four years.

"IT (Income Tax department) has now given a notice of a total of Rs 1,823 Cr to the Congress party. They have already withdrawn Rs 135 Cr from Congress party's accounts, which is a fund collected by us through crowdsourcing," Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said in a post on micro-blogging site 'X'.

He also said that while the I-T department has served notice to the grand old party, the ruling BJP has been spared.

"Despite the fact that public information of the Election Commission clearly shows that, 1297 people have deposited ₹42 Cr to BJP in 2017-18 without mentioning their name and addresses," he wrote.

Kharge also said, “Rs 4,600 Cr penalty overlooked for BJP's Rs 42 Cr unaccounted deposit, while Rs 135 Cr penalty is demanded for Congress' for Rs 14 lakh cash deposits by MLAs & MPs!"

He further asked, "Who is pressurising the Income Tax Department to act in this unjustified manner only against the Opposition? Why is the IT department being allowed to be used as a weapon to harass the principal opposition party - Congress!"

(With UNI inputs)