On ‘inheritance tax’ attack, Congress points to BJP leader's now-deleted post
PM Narendra Modi has accused Congress of “dangerous intentions” regarding inheritance tax.
Amid a barrage of attacks from the Bharatiya Janata Party over what they described as Congress's intention to tax inherited wealth, the grand old party rejected any such proposals while pointing to social media posts of a senior BJP functionary on the idea of inheritance tax.
Congress leader Pawan Khera shared some purported screenshots of BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya's old tweets, in which he apparently supported the “idea of taxing inheritance wealth” proposed by BJP's then minister of state for finance, Jayant Sinha.
“Meanwhile Amit Malviya regretting why he didn’t delete his past tweets,” Khera wrote on X.
HT couldn't independently verify the authenticity of the screenshots.
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On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi charged at Congress over Indian Overseas Congress president Sam Pitroda's "inheritance tax" remark, alleging that the statement exposed the party's "dangerous intentions" of snatching away the assets and rights of people.
Congress' general secretary for communications, Jairam Ramesh, countered it saying that the party has no intention of implementing an inheritance tax. He said that it was former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi who abolished the Estate Duty in 1985.
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"Fact One: Jayant Sinha, then Minister of State for Finance, publicly stated that he wanted to introduce Inheritance Tax in 2014. Fact Two: In 2017, reports emerged that the Modi Sarkar was going to re-introduce inheritance tax. Fact Three: In 2018, the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley praised Inheritance Taxes for spurring large endowments to hospitals, universities in the West. Fact Four: News reports emerged that Modi Sarkar would introduce an Inheritance Tax in Union Budget 2019," Ramesh said in an X post.
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Ramesh challenged Prime Minister Modi, asking for clarification on his party's position regarding the issue. He pointed to media reports featuring statements by former ministers of state for finance Jayant Sinha and Arun Jaitley, which seemed to support the idea of an inheritance tax.
Ramesh also shared a 15-minute speech by Sinha from the Forbes India Philanthropy Awards 2013, suggesting that it indicated his support for such a tax.