Saturday, May 18

After Being Called Out On Old X Post Supporting Inheritance Tax, Amit Malviya Deletes It

After Being Called Out On Old X Post Supporting Inheritance Tax, Amit Malviya Deletes It

Amit Malviya, the national convener of the IT cell of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), deleted an old post supporting ‘inheritance tax‘ after many X users, including Congress politicians, called out his hypocrisy. This came as he has been seen criticising the Congress party for comments made by its Overseas wing chief, Sam Pitroda.

Earlier in the day, Sam Pitroda, while talking to news agency ANI has said that the inheritance tax practice America should be taken to discussion and debates in India as the country does not have a provision like that.

“If one has $100 million worth of wealth and when he dies he can only transfer probably 45% to his children, 55% is grabbed by the government. That’s an interesting law. It says you in your generation, made wealth and you are leaving now, you must leave your wealth for the public, not all of it, half of it, which to me sounds fair. In India, you don’t have that. If somebody is worth 10 billion and he dies, his children get 10 billion and the public gets nothing…So these are the kind of issues people will have to debate and discuss,” he has told ANI.

This comment from the Congress leader, who belongs to the close circle of Gandhi family, gave fodder to the ruling BJP and their allegations against Congress on wealth distribution.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed the Congress over over the remarks saying that the “Congress loots people even after death”. During an election rally at Chhattisgarh’s Surguja, PM modi said the Congress’s “dangerous intentions are coming out in the open”. “The advisor of the prince of the Congress royal family had earlier said that the middle class should be taxed more. Now they have gone further ahead. Now the Congress is saying that it will impose an Inheritance Tax and tax the inheritance received by people from their parents,” he said.

Amit Malviya, from the morning, has been commenting on the remarks made by Pitroda, and suddenly the X found one tweet in which the BJP leader had supported the idea of inheritance tax in November 2014. Mr Malviya had commented after sharing an article and said: “I am all for Jayant Sinha’s idea to tax inheritance wealth”. Jayant Sinha was the junior finance minster at that time.

Commenting on Pitroda’s remarks, Malviya wrote: “Congress has decided to destroy India. Now, Sam Pitroda advocates 50% inheritance tax for wealth redistribution. This means 50% of whatever we build, with all our hard work and enterprise, will be taken away. 50%, besides all the tax we pay, which too will go up, if the Congress prevails.”

Pitroda has later clarified that he made the remarks as an individual and claimed that his comments were twisted to suit their narrative.

“I mentioned inheritance tax in the US only as an example in my normal conversation on TV. Can I not mention facts? I said these are the kind of issues people will have to discuss and debate. This has nothing to do with policy of any party, including Congress,” he said. “Who said 55% will be taken away? Who said something like this should be done in India? Why is BJP and media in panic?”.