New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley criticised Saturday JDS and Congress leaders for organising a protest outside the Income Tax Office at Bangalore for conducting searches on PWD contractors and engineers.
He said that the reaction of the Congress and the JDS has raised a needle of suspicion. “If no politician has been searched, no minister has been searched, then why the protest,” Jaitley asked.
The Bangalore case is a text book method of the UPA on 2 fronts: use government money, round trip it through contractors and beneficiaries to enrich themselves and then lip sympathy for federalism destroying it whenever the opportunity arises. This is a very transparent self goal,” Jaitley said in his blog titled ‘The UPA makes corruption a cause’.
Led by Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, the Congress-JDS ruling combine organised a protest in front of the Income Tax department Thursday against a statewide crackdown on his partymen and others.
Jaitley said that it was unprecedented that the Chief Minister of a state joined the street protest against income tax searches with a political motivation.
“The disproportionality of the reaction of the Congress and the JDS raises a needle of suspicion. Was the minister’s nephew a PWD contractor to whom largesses have been given – a case of nepotism? The CM and the ministers who joined the protest need to answer these questions,” Jaitley said.
Questioning whether states’ attitudes are threat to federalism, Jaitley said federalism is not merely the rights of the states. Indian federalism entails India as a ‘union of states’.
“The rights of the union are equally important. Security of India, sovereignty, dealing with terrorism, managing the borders, custom check points, income tax enforcement are all amongst the several constitutional powers of the union. If the states stand in way of any of them it is guilty of breaching federal norms. Can a state barge its police into the customs area and direct the customs as to what is to be done? This would be a threat to federalism,” Jaitley pointed out.
PTI