JOIN USA war of words broke out between the Delhi BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party on Monday over the issue of tax collection and raids by government agencies against the poll-bound city’s traders, who form a sizeable chunk of Delhi’s 1.3 crore voters.
While the BJP accused AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal of “misleading” the city’s traders by claiming that raids against commercial establishments went down during the party’s 49-day rule in Delhi, the AAP countered by claiming that the saffron party was only spreading rumours.
Citing Right to Information data, Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay told reporters that between January 5 and February 14, 2014, when Kejriwal was the chief minister, 151 raids were conducted on commercial establishments across the capital.
“Of these, 51 raids were conducted from January 5 to 31, and when it became clear that their government was not going to last long in Delhi, another 100 raids were conducted between February 1 and 14, about 10 raids daily,” Upadhyay said.
“He (Kejriwal) is misleading the traders of Delhi,” the city BJP president added.
Upadhyay said that the claims about Value Added Tax (VAT) revenue collected by the AAP government were also false.
“The AAP’s claim of collecting Rs 5,666 crore as VAT is completely false. According to the VAT department, only Rs 2,033 crore was collected by the Kejriwal government,” he said.
Kejriwal had on December 29 held a rally to woo traders in Nehru Place in south Delhi, where he had said that raids against traders had gone down under his watch while revenue collection had increased significantly.
The AAP said in a statement that a frustrated BJP is resorting to lies and misinformation about the tenure of the AAP government in Delhi, since it has nothing positive to show about the seven months since its central government is controlling the capital.
“In an unsuccessful attempt to hide the failures of its central government, the BJP has tried to release some selective information to mislead the people of Delhi about VAT collections during the Kejriwal government’s tenure,” the AAP said.