Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made his core pitch to the middle class of India during his rally at the Race Course Maidan in Pune. Reiterating his Viksit Bharat pitch for 2047, the Prime Minister said that he envisages a government that does not interfere with the lives of India’s middle-class families.
– > ‘There was a time when you needed a license to buy radios’
– > ‘Should India be taken back to License Raj’
– > ‘Modi’s dream is 2047 Viksit Bharat’
– > ‘I want Govt interference in the lives of the Middle class to end’
– > ‘I want the Government to be pulled out from their lives’
– > ‘Government today is used to interfere in everything’
– > ‘I want to take Governments out of your lives’
– > ‘And whenever poor need us, Govt should be available’
– > ‘Today it is about this document and that document’
– > ‘How long will we trouble the middle class’
– > ‘When India becomes viksit all this interference will end’
– > ‘You middle-class people work hard’
– > ‘The Shehzada today eyes your money’
– > ‘These people want an X-ray of your wealth & lockers’
– > More than 39,000 compliances reduced by 2023
– > 3,400 legal provisions decriminalised
– > 13,000 compliances simplified & more than 1,200 processes digitised
– > 103 offences decriminalised and 327 redundant provisions/laws removed
– > Jan Vishwas Bill introduced to amend 42 central acts
– > Proposed 352 points to benefit business owners
– > Simplified KYC procedure by adopting a ‘risk-based’ approach
“I do not think they are solutions by any stretch of the imagination. These policies sow discord and block every road to equity, they create hatred and destabilise the economic as well as social fabric of a nation,” PM Modi said in an interview with TOI, responding to a query on whether he sees ideas such as wealth tax and inheritance tax as solutions to ensure equity and inequality.
Modi also said the BJP’s vision for the country is clearly laid out in its manifesto and indicated that inheritance tax is not remotely part of it. “What the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) plans to do is written in our manifesto… The ideology of the BJP is clear. We go before the country with our manifesto and works. Please don’t impose their great thoughts on us,” he said, referring to Congress leader Sam Pitroda’s remarks on inheritance tax.
The roots of the inheritance tax trace back to 1953 when it was first implemented. However, it was eliminated in 1985 by the Rajiv Gandhi administration after forty years of existence, primarily due to significant public resistance arising from high tax rates. These rates ranged from 7.5% for properties valued at Rs 1 lakh to a maximum of 85% for properties exceeding Rs 20 lakh in value. The whole controversy began when Sam Pitroda, chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, remarked in a television debate on the intriguing nature of the inheritance tax in the US. He stated, “That’s an interesting law. It says you in your generation made wealth and you are leaving now, you must leave your wealth for the public, not all of it, half of it, which to me sounds fair.”
Pitroda elaborated that if someone possesses $100 million worth of wealth and passes away, they can only transfer approximately 45% to their children, with the government claiming the remaining 55%.
The discussion captured the attention of netizens and drew strong criticism from the ruling BJP. In response, Pitroda defended himself by clarifying that he merely cited the US inheritance tax as an example, emphasizing that it was unrelated to the policies of any political party, including the Congress.
