If the people named in this article are in a vengeful mood, then I am in for a lot of trouble. May be they will file an FIR against me and get me arrested; May be that will lead to the media rallying behind me and making me a Hero of the masses. Then, I will be made the Indian Prime Minister. Then, in a crazy fit, I will become a Dark overlord...Mwahahaha!!!
Don't mind my mindless musings...Read on...
Following
the recent expose by IAC activist Arvind Kejriwal regarding the nexus behind
accumulation of black money in Swiss banks, the Central Government came up
yesterday with a bizarre scheme to check the circulation of black money.
The
central government has decided to provide credit card swiping machines as part
of a national strategy to integrate the poverty ridden masses and check the
flow of black money in the economy.
In a press conference
attended by senior UPA leaders Kapil Sibal and P. Chidambaram, the government
announced the ambitious scheme. Mr. Chidambaram informed the assembled
journalists that the move, the brain-child of Congress’s PM-in-waitng Rahul
Gandhi, is aimed to curb the flow of black money in the economy and integrating
the lakhs of beggars into the mainstream, besides decreasing the economy's fiscal
deficit through taxes from the beggars. The Union minister claimed that in a
recent government sponsored survey, it was found that begging, if seen as an
organized industry employed the largest number of employees in the country with
all transactions in black. The minister claimed that with this scheme the
government could recover at least 45% of the black money circulating in the
system.
However, political
analysts and our sources in various political parties are of the opinion that
the move may backfire since nobody likes being taxed more or being taxed at
all.
Meanwhile, reactions
from various political parties started pouring in by the end of the day.
The BJP spokesperson
slammed the government for being insensitive over the issue of poverty by
aiming to tax the already poverty-ridden masses.
Apart from the BJP
central leadership, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, on campaign trail at
a rally in Vadodara claimed that the real Black Money was stored in Madam
Sonia’s lockers in Swiss Banks and not minuscule alms obtained by the beggars.
Within an hour of this
statement, Information & Broadcasting Minister and Congress spokesperson Mr. Manish Tewari condemned
Mr. Modi’s authoritarian attitude, comparing him to Hitler while Ex-cop
Sanjiv Bhatt wrote a letter to Modi, asking him to apologise to the nation for
the 2002 riots.
The CPM alleged that
the UPA government was anti-people and this move by the government was at the
behest of the US government in order to benefit their banking institutions and
Credit card swiping machine manufacturers.
West Bengal Chief
Minister Mamata Banerjee slammed the government for its anti-people schemes and
proposed yet another No confidence motion against the UPA in the Lok Sabha.
SP and BSP leaders
Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati threatened to withdraw their outside support
from the government if it does not allow reservations for Minorities and
Backward classes respectively in this scheme.
Meanwhile, MNS chief Raj
Thackrey gave a new direction to the debate, alleging that the beggars hailing
from Bihar will eat into the Marathi beggars’ share and challenged that either Marathi
beggars should get preference in the allocation of the Credit card swiping machines or beggars
from Bihar and other northern states shall be driven away from Mumbai.
Amidst the ensuing
political controversy, this reporter had an opportunity to meet a recently
upgraded beggar as part of the government’s pilot project before implementing
the scheme nationwide. The Beggar, Mr. Ram Das enlightened this reporter about
how any donation made to him being electronic in nature shall be exempt from
taxation.
On being asked, if the scheme had empowered
him or helped improve his and his family's condition, Mr. Das smiled and said,”Let us just
say, that now I have to worry about investments and tax saving”.
