FORMER Union minister Anurag Thakur on Monday praised the Narendra Modi government for “picking up the economy from the fragile five and putting it on a secure footing”, while attacking the Opposition for “Muslim appeasement”, saying it was defending Mughal emperor Aurangzeb instead of celebrating Indian heroes.
Speaking in favour of the Finance Bill in the Lok Sabha, the BJP MP said, “The world is looking at India with hope. India is the fastest-growing economy in the world and will stay so for the next 10 years. The Modi government has placed its trust on the middle-class taxpayers, and they don’t have to pay any tax till an income of `12 lakh per annum,” Thakur said.
He accused the Opposition parties of having a “Mughal mindset”, accusing them of appeasement. “We are told kabrein kyon khodte ho, gade murde kyon ukhadte ho (why do you dig graves and exhume the dead). I also want to say — look at where the world has reached, and they are still stuck in the 17th century with mughaliya soch (Mughal mindset). Their ideals should have been Rana Sanga, Shivaji Maharaj and Maharana Pratap, but they are busy remembering Babur and Aurangzeb. They remember someone who imposed jizya (tax) on Hindus in the name of religion,” he said, amid hooting from Opposition benches.
“Don’t try to create a nation of Jinnah in the country of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. We will never allow you to create Jinnah’s nation,” Thakur said.
Thakur laid out details of various laws enacted to provide ease of doing business in India. He said there are 1.6 lakh startups in the country now, making India the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world.
Earlier, BJP’s Godda MP Nishikant Dubey said while several economies were struggling, the world was looking towards India as a “rising star”.
He said in 2014, the tax-GDP ratio was 6.5%, while it is about 11.7% now.
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Dubey said as per a CAG report pertaining to the UPA’s time, no big corporate house paid its real tax due, and in 2013-14 the revenue forgone from business houses was `5 lakh crore. He asserted that in 1996-97, Congress leader P Chidambaram signed the International Telecom Agreement (ITA 1), with India being one of the first 17 signatories to it. The agreement said till 2004, all electronics, toys, hardware, software, chips and software could come duty-free to India, he said, adding that India under PM Modi had refused to sign ITA 2 in order to boost manufacturing.
“Because of that (ITA 1) agreement, be it idols of Ganeshji or Diwali lighting, it was all coming from China. This is your legacy, and you complain why we are not able to compete,” Dubey said.
