Team News Riveting
Bhopal, April 25
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday alleged that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had abolished inheritance tax in 1985 after his mother Indira Gandhi’s death to save her wealth from going to the government.
Continuing his relentless attack on the Congress over wealth redistribution and inheritance tax, Modi said that after benefiting from the abolition of estate duty–a levy imposed on inherited movable and immovable assets, the Congress now wants to bring back the levy. The Prime Minister was addressing an election meeting in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district.
“If the Congress comes to power, it will snatch more than half of the earnings of the people through inheritance tax,” Modi said, adding that the Congress wants to confiscate people’s jewellery and small savings by conducting an X-ray of their properties and valuables.
“Listen with your ears wide open about the sins that the Congress has committed. I want to put forth an interesting fact. When sister Indira Gandhi passed away, there was a law by virtue of which half portion of the wealth used to go to the government. There was a talk then that Indiraji willed her wealth in her son Rajiv Gandhi’s name,” Modi said. “To save the money from going to the government, the then PM Rajiv Gandhi abolished the inheritance tax,” he added.
The Congress wants to reinforce the tax more powerfully now after its four generations reaped benefit of the wealth passed on to them, he said. An adviser to the opposition party’s ‘shehzada’ (referring to Rahul Gandhi) has now suggested imposition of inheritance tax, he added.
Modi said that as long as the BJP is there, it will not allow any designs like imposition of inheritance tax to succeed. “The wealth that you have accumulated by working hard and enduring hardships will be looted from you once a Congress-led government is formed. Modi is standing as a wall between you and the Congress’s plan to loot you,” the Prime Minister said.
