Indians paying taxes like England, yet receiving Somalia-like facilities: Raghav Chadha

Chandigarh/New Delhi, July 25, 2024: Raghav Chadha, the Aam Aadmi Party's Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab, delivered a compelling speech in Parliament, sharply criticizing the central government's budget and offering economic recommendations. He attributed the reasons for the ruling party's defeat in the recent Lok Sabha elections to their economic policies.

In his impassioned speech, Raghav Chadha criticized the recent budget, claiming it has disappointed every segment of society, including BJP supporters. He likened the government's tax policies to being like a leech, alleging they have only increased the burden of the common man. Chadha highlighted that despite the substantial taxes citizens pay, they receive inadequate services in return, such as education, health, and transport facilities comparable to those in Somalia despite taxation levels similar to England's.  

Today, if a common man earns 10 rupees, then the government deducts two-three rupees from it as income tax, two-and-a-half rupees as GST and 1-1.5 rupees in the form of surcharge. He argues that despite these deductions amounting to 7-8 rupees out of every 10 earned, the government fails to provide world-class education, health, and transport facilities to its citizens. 

Raghav Chadha succinctly summarized the reasons behind the Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, emphasizing the economy as the primary factor. He stressed that the poor state of the economy, particularly its severe impact on rural areas where a majority of India's population resides, led to a decline in BJP's seats in those regions. Chadha's analysis underscores the critical role economic conditions play in shaping electoral outcomes, especially in rural constituencies.

He said that in 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party got 303 seats. This time the people of the country brought them down to 240 seats by imposing an 18 percent GST on it. Today, the economic condition in rural areas is at its lowest level in the last two and a half decades due to inflation, unemployment, economic inequality, debt on farmers and high cost in agriculture and lack of MSP, while the promise was to double the income of farmers and give MSP as per the Swaminathan report.

Chadha said that rural wages have decreased in the last 25 months. In 2014, a daily wage laborer could buy 3 kg of tur dal with his one day's wages, today he is able to buy only 1.5 kg of tur dal. Which means inflation is increasing and their income is also decreasing. Therefore, BJP's vote share decreased by 5% in rural areas.

The second reason due to which they fared badly in the elections is food inflation. Today, the prices of every commodity, be it flour, milk, rice, curd, have increased a lot.  Today food inflation in the country has increased by more than nine percent. The things that we export have become very expensive today and the farmers do not even get the benefit of it. Then where is all that money going?

He also gave many suggestions to the government regarding the economy. The first suggestion is that the government should try to link inflation with minimum wages so that poor people get relief from inflation. The second suggestion - the prices of crops given to farmers should be reviewed in a better way so that agriculture can be profitable and third - for the economic well-being of farmers, MSP should be legal guaranteed as per the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission.

The fourth suggestion he gave was that the long term capital gain tax should remain unchanged or else it will have a bad effect on the real estate sector. Due to this, it will become difficult for people to buy a new house and the builder will also have to bear losses. For this, Chadha also gave an example and explained how the new tax system is harmful. He said that due to this, a huge amount of black money will come into the real estate sector and fraud will take place.

The fifth suggestion is that financial savings should be encouraged, especially equity, mutual funds, bank deposits and financial investments etc. which people do for more than two to three years. The sixth suggestion is that GST should be reviewed. Less GST should be imposed on things related to the MSME sector and GST should be removed from FMCG items.

The seventh is that there should be no discrimination with the states in terms of funds. The way this time Bihar and Andhra Pradesh were given special packages and other states were ignored, it is not right for federalism.  The central government should work like 'co-operative federalism', not 'discriminatory federalism'.

Eighth - The government should reduce cess and surcharge or give it to the states as well. Currently, the central government does not have to share the cess and surcharge money with the states, so the government collects as much money as possible from the common man through this medium. If the central government earns Rs 100, then it earns Rs 18 out of it through cess and surcharge. That means 18 percent tax goes directly into the pocket of the central government. The last suggestion is that the GST compensation given to the states, which has now been stopped, should be extended for at least five more years.