Criticising Parkash Singh Badal-led SAD-BJP Government in Punjab for levying tax on electricity, cars, two wheelers, marriage palaces, liquor, cement and several other items to save cows, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday said that it was nothing but a fit case of bankruptcy of ideas and bad economics.
AAP’s senior leader Kanwar Sandhu, who also heads party’s Punjab Dialogue programme and manifesto committee, said that there was no dispute over the argument that cows and other cattle must be protected.
“However, not by the ways and means adopted by the SAD-BJP Government by levying tax on as many as nine separate items to collect money from the people of Punjab who are already reeling under the extreme price rise of the essential commodities,” he said.
Sandhu asserted that Badal government had earlier levied education cess and sports cess on the sale of liquor. However, the cess collected from the sale of liquor was never utilised for the promotion of education and the sports as was being claimed by the Badal Government, he added.
AAP apprehended that in the same way, the SAD-BJP Government, at the fag end of its second term, would squander away the public money they would collect by levying cess on four wheelers, two wheelers, oil tanker, marriage palace, cement, liquor, and power, he said.
Sandhu said that Badal may also misutilise the cess in his sangat darshan programmes and distribute the money among his favourite sarpanches.
“If they were serious about the condition of cows, they would have built enough cow shelters all over the State in nine years of their term. Which unfortunately they have failed to do so,” he said.
Sandhu said that protection of cows and other cattle was a serious issue and must be pondered thoroughly before some policy could be formulated in this regard. “When AAP will form the government in Punjab, we will formulate a comprehensive policy for the upkeep and protection of the cows and other cattle. For which, we would not burden the common man by levying more tax,” he added.