SIKKIM: Congress to pitch for uniform tax relief to all Sikkimese ‘No Sikkimese person will be discriminated’
Posted by barunroy on January 7, 2009
FROM SIKKIM EXPRESS
Nar Bahadur Bhandari. Photo by Sikkim Express
Gangtok, Jan 6: Attacking the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) government over the skeletons coming out the Income Tax exemption cupboard, arch rival Sikkim Pradesh Congress Committee (SPCC) today promised to deliver uniform exemption to all Sikkimese persons with voting rights in the State.
“We will make the income tax a key issue during the elections. We have already drafted our election manifesto where SPCC assures to provide uniform income tax relief to all those in Sikkim with voting rights once our party comes to power. This manifesto will be signed by our national president Sonia Gandhi. This way, no Sikkimese person will be discriminated on income tax relief”, said SPCC president Nar Bahadur Bhandari in a press meet here. He added that all voters in Sikkim will be also extended all Central schemes.
Assembly elections in Sikkim are due in April-May and already political temperatures are high over the various skeletons coming out of the income tax exemption cupboard.
“The Income Tax Act 1960 which was enforced from June 16, 2008 is illegal in Sikkim. People say that Sikkim subject holders have been exempted but do they know that Income Tax Manuel 1948 of Sikkim has also been repealed. Had it not been repealed then it could have given permanent protection Sikkimese people under Article 371 F. No, people jumped to felicitate Pawan Chamling. Demand back those khadas”, said Mr. Bhandari.
“Once Congress government comes to power in Sikkim, the next day everyone with voter cards in Sikkim will also be exempted at par with Sikkim subject holders. This is my big agenda for the coming elections”, said Mr. Bhandari. He squarely leveled the responsibility for the income tax mess to the Chief Minister Pawan Chamling.
“Why did Chamling did not raise these issues when he agreed with the Centre for enforcing Income Tax Act in Sikkim? He knew this will happen but yet he kept silent”, accused Mr. Bhandari.
Earlier in February last year, the Centre had exempted Sikkimese persons with Sikkim Subject certificates from paying income taxes while enforcing the Income Tax Act 1961 into Sikkim. An office of the Income Tax department was also set up in August last year.
However, it has now been revealed that even Sikkim Subject holders without serial and volume numbers also have to cough up taxes with other Sikkimese persons without subjects.
This as Mr. Bhandari puts is a direct threat to the nationality of the Sikkimese people many of whom did not took Sikkim subject certificates before Sikkim merged with India in 1975. This is a very serious threat to the Sikkimese people, he warned.
“When Sikkim merged with the Union of India there was a law that those with Sikkim subjects automatically became Indian citizens and before the merger, people who had stayed in Sikkim for 15 years before 1961 were allowed to make the subjects. But many Sikkimese people whether they were Nepalis, Bhutias or Lepchas did not took Sikkim subjects before that period because of ignorance or they felt it was not necessary. Then the Centre termed them as Stateless and I fought with the Centre to accept these Sikkimese people as left outs”, said Mr. Bhandari.
The SPCC president also took objections to charges leveled against him by the ruling SDF party. “Has SDF party forgotten the bloody violence it unleashed after winning the 1999 elections? Innocent people were mindlessly beaten up immediately after SDF won the elections”, he said.
Once our party comes to power, we will form a commission to investigate into the violence and give compensation to the victims, said Mr. Bhandari.
Another issue which will be a key plank in SPCC’s election campaign is the Limboo Tamang seat reservation issue. “All organizations claiming to sympathetic towards the political rights of the Limboo Tamang communities should shut up now as it is too late. Instead they should support Congress party who will deliver seats to the two communities”, said Mr. Bhandari.
All the issues plaguing Sikkim like corruption, communal disintegration and exploitation of its natural resources by the SDF government will be solved only once the Congress forms the government, the party president summed it up.
tash pemba said
WHAT A FIASCO THE INCOME TAX RELIEF FOR SIKKIMESE HAS BECOME ?
Was this planned by the congress and Bhandari to make Pawan Chamling look foolish.?
Can government of India act in such a communal manner?
First they descriminated against the Madhesi Sikkimese and now they are descriminating against the Nepalese Sikkimese.
Pawan Chamling should now call a strike as now Government of India has made 60% plus people of sikkim as non Sikkimese and Chamling called a strike and total bandh when some Shiv sena types called him a Nepalese.
What happened to Sharma’s detaile allegations and is the CBI and Income Tax looking into that matter or have they been paid of as Mulayam Yadav seem to have paid them off in his dispropanate income case–here there are two cases assets beyond income and chief minister who is Nepalese national ?????
If Chamling over reacted for his personal cause by calling a Bandh in Sikkim and costing the ecomnomy millions will he now call a Bandh to protect the rest of the Sikkimese or not–and now his actions will prove whether he acted in a conspiracy with the Government of India to deprive legitimate benefits from Sikkimese or if Bhandari planned this with the Congress party to make him look foolish –which by all accounts he is looking today.
THE DEVILS HAVE COME HOME TO ROOST.
Exposer said
In the last Assembly elections,Bhandari had taken a vow to relinquish his political career if his party was not voted back to power..Now the same man is back with deceiving ,voters friendly agendas to the get the CMs chair….! I ve heard u ve a silver made king size bed..! Is it true ??