NEW DELHI:
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has penned down a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi which strongly condemns the central governments new scheme of carrying out Income tax raids on small traders and businessmen across Delhi for recovering black money.
The major excerpts from his letter are as follows:
The new initiative taken by the Income tax department has been worry some for the small trading and business community in the country. As per reports circulating in the print, the Income tax department has been given strict instructions by your government to raid petty traders and small businessmen who have their business set on the road side of Delhi.
Kejriwal then makes a mention about his experience in the Income tax department and stated that he had never seen such a raid taking place in his entire tenure. He said he was astonished after learning about the government’s objective of carrying out such raids.
Kejriwal said that before 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Prime Minister had made tall claims that once his government comes to power he shall make all endeavours to bring back the black money from abroad and punish those who were guilty of stacking enormous amounts of unaccounted money. On the contrary not a single penny has come back to India.
He has stated that instead of holding an enquiry on the black money scandal, the Modi government initiated schemes to turn black money into white and give the case a complete twist. He wrote that the central government thought that their scheme will turn one lac crores of black money into white and will lead to a 45 lacs worth of tax recovery, but the scheme has completely flopped.
Kejriwal stated that their party had come to know that the current government was scared about not achieving its targets and now has devised this vicious plan of recovering the money by troubling small traders.
The letter states that - "You had promised that the names of those found guilty shall be revealed but you dint do so as some of them whose names were found guilty were the ministers part of their swearing in ceremony. These ministers accompany you on your foreign visits and are part of your family engagements. The citizens of the country have lost faith in your government"
He concluded by expressing that if the prime minister digs deep into his conscious, he would very well know that this raiding business by the IT authorities shall only make life miserable for the small trading community and do nothing to bring back the black money in the country.
