Arun Jaitley criticises JDS, Congress for organising protest against IT searches
New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Saturday criticised JDS and Congress leaders for organising a protest outside the Income Tax Office at Bengaluru for conducting searches on PWD contractors and engineers.
Stating that the disproportionality of the reaction of the Congress and the JDS raises a needle of suspicion, Jaitley said
"If no politician has been searched, no minister has been searched, then why the protest?"
"The Bengaluru case is a text book method of the UPA on 2 fronts: use government money, round trip it through contractors and beneficiaries to enrich themselves and then lip sympathy for federalism destroying it whenever the opportunity arises. This is a very transparent self goal," Jaitley said in his blog titled 'The UPA makes corruption a cause'.
Led by Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, the Congress-JDS ruling combine organised a protest in front of the Income Tax department at Bengaluru on Thursday against a statewide crackdown on his partymen and others.
Jaitley said that it was unprecedented that the chief minister of a state joined the street protest against income tax searches with a political motivation.
"The disproportionality of the reaction of the Congress and the JDS raises a needle of suspicion. Was the minister's nephew a PWD contractor to whom largesses have been given a case of nepotism? The CM and the ministers who joined the protest need to answer these questions," Jaitley said.
Even as the JDS and Congress leaders in the state alleged that ministers had been searched, the best evidence they could provide for was that the nephew' of a minister was searched, Jaitley said, adding that even the tax authorities have issued a statement saying that no MP, MLA or minister was searched.
Questioning whether states' attitude is a threat to federalism, Jaitley said federalism is not merely the rights of the states. Indian federalism entails India as a union of states .
"The rights of the union are equally important. Security of India, sovereignty, dealing with terrorism, managing the borders, custom check points, income tax enforcement are all amongst the several constitutional powers of the union.
"If the states stand in way of any of them it is guilty of breaching federal norms. Can a state barge its police into the customs area and direct the customs as to what is to be done? This would be a threat to federalism," he said.
Jaitley said many states have stopped giving police security to income tax authorities when they conduct their operations.
"Alternatively, when state police is asked for, the information is leaked out to the political government and it reaches the targets of the operations. Tax authorities increasingly have to rely on central forces. In the Kashmir valley recently, searches were conducted under the governor's rule after 17 years. These taxes are meant for the welfare of the poor in India," he added.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
