BJP targets Sam Pitroda’s inheritance tax remark

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party leaders on Wednesday slammed Sam Pitroda over his remarks on the redistribution of wealth, where the Chairman of Indian Overseas Congress advocated an inheritance tax law in the country, while Congress distanced itself from the comments, saying that his views do not always reflect the position of the party.

The controversy erupted after Pitroda, while emphasising the need for policy towards wealth redistribution, spoke about the concept of inheritance tax prevailing in America and said that these are issues that will need to be discussed.

Addressing a poll rally in Chhattisgarh, PM Narendra Modi claimed that the “dangerous intentions” of Congress are coming to fruition and quipped that those who treated the party as a family heirloom now oppose inheritance rights for Indians.

“…The property you have accumulated through your hard work will not be given to your children. The claws of Congress will snatch that too from you…As long as you are alive, Congress will impose higher taxes and when you are no longer alive, it will burden you with inheritance tax. Those people who considered the entire Congress party as their ancestral property and handed it over to their children, now do not want Indians to pass on their property to their children,” Modi said.

Home Minister Amit Shah also flayed Pitroda’s remarks, saying, “The appeasement politics of the Congress stand exposed today with Sam Pitroda’s statement on wealth redistribution. He reaffirmed the party’s intention to seize the property of the majority and distribute it among the minority,” Shah said.

“It yet again brings to the fore that the empowerment of India’s poor, Dalits, youth, tribes, and backward classes was never on Congress’s agenda,” he added.