A day after Punjab Government succumbed to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and traders’ pressure and decided to withdraw ‘advance tax on stock’ by bringing an ordinance, the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Wednesday asked the BJP Minister Anil Joshi not to play politics on the issue.

It has also urged the State BJP president Kamal Sharma to “direct” Joshi not to flout the principles of coalition ‘dharma’ as well as collective responsibility of the State Cabinet.local Bodies Minister and BJP MlA Anil Joshi, the previous week, had demanded a rollback of “anti-trader” taxation provision and threatened to lead a protest of traders.Joshi had opposed the State Government’s decision to levy advance tax on the stocked goods after making amendment in the Punjab VAT Act on October 2013. As per the amendment, 6.05 per cent tax on essential commodities and 14.30 per cent on industrial goods like cement, tiles, were to be levied by the State Government.

With the trading community being a major vote bank of the BJP and decision affecting over 2.5 lakh traders, many BJP ministers and MlAs, besides Joshi, had also raised the issue and come against the State Government’s decisions giving the impression that it was the SAD behind imposition of this tax. Expressing shock and terming Joshi’s act as “unacceptable”, SAD general secretary and party core committee member Maheshinder Singh Grewal said: “This is most surprising considering the fact that Joshi participated in the Cabinet meeting held in October 2013 in which it was decided to amend section 13(1) of the VAT Act which provided that Input Tax Credit (ITC) would not be available unless such goods were sold or used in the manufacture or processing of goods meant for sale in the State.”He said that Joshi was “part and parcel of the decision” to impose ITC on stocks and even ratified it not only in the Cabinet but also during the Budget Session of the Vidhan Sabha when the amendment was taken up for consideration.

Giving a word of caution, Grewal said that all ministers “need to practice restraint and adhere to principles of coalition dharna and collective responsibility….All decisions taken collectively should be owned by everyone and no one minister should try to project that he was not part of the decision making process”.

On the issue of ITC, SAD leader claimed that the decision was “based on feedback which was given to Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal by various trader groups that it was decided to roll back ITC on stocks…former minister and senior BJP leader Manoranjan Kalia had also made a plea in this regard to the Deputy Chief Minister”.

He said that fundamental idea behind amending VAT Act earlier was to control evasion of taxes as against 2.49 lakh registered traders, 1,063 traders were paying 85 per cent of the total tax, while 1.44 lakh dealers did not pay any tax.“Though the decision to amend VAT Act was done to streamline tax collection and control evasion, some practical difficulties were reported by the traders due to which the decision was rolled back,” he clarified.

“like the earlier decision to amend the VAT Act which was taken following feedback from everyone, the decision to withdraw the amendment is also part of this process”, said Grewal while urging the state BJP chief “to apprise BJP ministers that they should not try to project that they are not part of the collective decision making process”.