New Delhi: Lashing out at AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal for claiming that zero raid policy was adopted during his 49-day rule, BJP today came out with a RTI reply and said that 151 raids were conducted on commercial establishments during his government.
The party also accused Kejriwal of adopting “hit and run” policy, claiming that AAP only puts allegations and when time comes to prove them, they “run away”.
“In recent meeting with traders in Nehru Palace, Kejriwal claimed that his government didn't conduct a single raid. But, this is a lie. In RTI reply, we got to know that during his 49-day rule, 151 raids were conducted,” Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay said here.
BJP alleged that from January 5 to January 31, 2014, 51 raids were conducted while from February 1 to 14 last year, 100 raids were conducted due to which, on an average, the national capital witnessed one raid every two hour during AAP tenure.
Accusing the former chief minister of “misleading” the people on the issue of tax collection, Upadhyay said, “Mr. Kejriwal had also claimed that during his government, Rs 5,666 crore was collected as tax collection, but RTI's reply says that in the 49-day rule of AAP's government, Rs 2033 crore was only collected.”
Between January 1 and 15 last year, Kejriwal's government received revenue of Rs 231.92 crore and also, from January 16 to 31, 2014, Rs 1505.24 crore were collected. From February 1 to 14, 2014, Rs 296 crore tax was only collected, Upadhyay claimed.
The Delhi BJP chief also claimed that he has prepared a list of “309 lies” of AAP and his party would come out with these lies from time-to-time.
Meanwhile, the AAP rubbished the saffron party's allegations and said that a “frustrated” BJP was resorting to “lies and misinformation”.
“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 the collection of value Added Tax (VAT) during the Arvind Kejriwal government's tenure and raids conducted by VAT inspectors,” the party said in a statement.
It alleged that the BJP has hidden the fact that during the AAP government no raids were allowed on ordinary traders.
“It has also not revealed that raids which it is falsely referring to were sample checks conducted on petrol pumps, checks on liquor vends and notices to recover tax dues from repeat defaulters,” the party said.
The party also added that before the AAP came to power around 200 raids were taking place on ordinary traders in a month and after the exit of its government this number has gone upto between 250-300 raids every month.
“The AAP also challenges the BJP to reveal how many of these raids have been conducted on liquor vends, petrol pumps and tax defaulters and how many of these raids have been against ordinary traders.
“Raids on traders have increased since BJP took control of Delhi in May and the VAT collection has also gone down.
The BJP has failed to dispute the figures of VAT collection
during the quarter in which AAP government was in Delhi,” the party said in a statement.
