NEW DELHI: The Modi-led government’s much-hyped onslaught on black money continued on Tuesday as the Bill to amend tax laws was passed even as pandemonium prevailed in the Lok Sabha. In an apparent show of extraordinary urgency, the Lower House passed the Taxation Law (Second Amendment) Bill, 2016, that seeks to impose 50 per cent tax on declaration of previously undisclosed amounts and 83 per cent on those who refuse to do so, provided they get caught.
The onslaught did not stop there. With opposition parties alleging that top BJP leaders knew about demonetisation in advance and protected their ill-gotten gains, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked all his party MPs and Union Ministers to share their bank transaction details from November 8 to December 31 with party chief Amit Shah.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was quick to retort. “Why after November 8? Please take the details six months before November 8,” he tweeted. However, workers of the saffron party drowned all voices of dissent by chanting “black money of the rich belongs to poor”.
The slogans complimented the plans of the government. “Money obtained by taxing unaccounted wealth will not go into the Consolidated Fund of India but to the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Scheme,” reiterated a top source in the government. Garib Kalyan is the flagship anti-poverty programme of this government.
Modi continued his efforts to ensure that the currency ban initiative is considered by the common man as a pro-poor reform of the right-wing party. I will not allow black money to crush the poor,” he said at the Parliamentary party meeting of the BJP on Tuesday morning. “The Prime Minister will gain an image of being a ruthless crusader against black money by making the rich shell out exemplary taxes,” a senior minister in the Modi government told Express.