Srinagar, October 11, 2020 (PPI-OT): In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the two pro-India political parties, National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have criticised the recent India move to implement property tax, first time ever, in the territory. While Farooq Abdullah-led NC called the tax overburdening the people in a crisis, the Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP said it brought back memories of despotic rule.
The NC, in a statement said that the party’s General Secretary, Ali Muhammad Sagar chaired a party meeting in Srinagar in this connection. It added that the NC leaders, expressing concern over the imposition of property tax, said that amidst depressing economic activity and soaring unemployment, the India government amended two municipal laws and empowered the local administration to levy and collect property tax. “Far from doling out fiscal help and other supportive measures, the Government wants to suck the life and blood of people,” he added.
“Far from doling out fiscal help and other supportive measures, the government, the leaders said, wants to suck the life and blood of people. The measure will push the people to the wall,” read the NC statement. Terming the move as grave injustice, the statement said the imposition of the property tax, at a time when the economy is reeling under slowdown, will overburden people, who are struggling to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, PDP in its statement compared the proposed property tax to the exploitative taxation regime during the monarchical rule. It added that dictatorial policies were being implemented in J and K at the behest of communal elements to cripple the territory’s economy and enforce asset devaluation.
“The property tax order smacks of the despotic and anarchic rule the people of this land have witnessed for hundreds of years when we were crushed under the heavy burden of taxation. It is nothing but the revival of that dark, dreadful and disastrous era to which Kashmir’s blood-soaked history is synonymous,” PDP senior leader Mohammad Khurshid Alam said.
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