BJP accuses Congress government of unleashing ‘tax terrorism’ to fund guarantees

The Opposition BJP on Wednesday accused the Congress government in the State of unleashing “tax terrorism” in the last 27 months of its rule, which resulted in price rise of several essentials, and demanded that it stop raising additional taxes or quit.

Leader of the Opposition R. Ashok, who initiated the debate in the Legislative Assembly on “halted developments” in the State, said the government has increased taxes, user fees and hiked fares/prices, and mobilised ₹52,422 crore annually against the requirement of about ₹50,000 crore for funding five “guarantees”. The tax hike was unprecedented in the State, he said.

Additional taxes

Mr. Ashok said that, for instance, by imposing additional taxes on fuel, the government earned additional revenue of ₹6,500 crore. He also cited bus fare hike (₹1,000 crore), vehicle registration fee hike (₹3,300 crore) and so on — together generating an additional ₹52,422 crore annually.

The fee for a birth certificate doubled from ₹10 to ₹20, the stamp paper price from ₹10 to ₹100 and now the government is “extorting” money in the name of e-khata and charging for car parking space in apartments and individual households, he alleged. He demanded to know why we should pay to computerise (e-khata) property documents which already exist and called it a “scam”. He said the Congress government had imposed “tax terrorism to burden the common people”.

Hike in ‘commission’

The Congress party, which labelled the previous BJP regime as a “40% commission” government, has increased the “commission rate” to 70% for issuing commencement certificates (CC) for buildings. More than ₹35,000 crore SC/ST funds had been diverted to funding guarantees, the BJP leader alleged. 

The Leader of the Opposition said the ruling Congress members, such as Raju Kage, B.R. Patil, Basavaraj Rayareddi, Home Minister G. Parameshwara, have themselves exposed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s failures in funding the development works.

State of roads

“Everywhere you look, there are potholes that have turned our roads into death traps. Continuous rains only expose government apathy,” said Mr. Ashok, criticising Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar’s leadership.

The bad roads reduced the speed of BMTC buses from 15 km per hour to 9 km per hour. More than ₹5,000 crore was spent on 874 km of arterial and sub-arterial roads around Bengaluru. Why were potholes seen on the roads, and where had the money gone?, asked Mr. Ashok.