So General Election fever is slowly picking up. Daily you read about accusations and counter accusations between Ruling party and opposition parties, and even the smallest of the thing is being blown into gigantic proportions. This will keep on going till the last day of campaigning.
So few thoughts on this Thursday of April 2019.
1.So today is the first day of polling for the General Elections 2019. The polling is being held in Andhra Pradesh for 25 seats, Telengana for 17 seats, UP for 8 seats, Maharashtra for 7 seats, Assam for 5 seats, Uttarakhand for 5 seats, Bihar for 4 seats, Odisha for 4 seats, West Bengal for 2 seats, J&K for 2 seats, Arunachal Pradesh 2 seats, Meghalaya for 2 seats, for 1 seat each in Chhatisgarh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Andaman & Lakshadweep. So there are 91 seats across the country which are going on poll today.
Along with Lok Sabha’s seat polling, the polling for assembly elections are also taking place in Andhra, Arunachal, Sikkim (All seats) and Odisha where 28/147 seats will go for poll today.
In today’s 91 seats, BJP is defending in 32 seats ( 8 in UP, 5 in Uttarakhand, 5 in Maharashtra, 4 in Assam, Andhra 2, Telengana 1, Bihar 3, J&K 1, Arunachal 1, Chhatisgarh 1, Andaman 1 ), Congress is defending just 7 seats (2 in Telengana, 1 each in Assam, Arunachal, Meghalaya, Manipur & Mizoram) Balance seats are being defended by Regional parties, the main being TDP & YSRCP in Andhra, TRS in Telengana, BJD in Odisha.
BJP can look for gains in West Bengal, where it has established a strong base in last 5 years, and also they can look for gain in Tripura and Manipur. As last time Congress tally was very low, they will be looking for gain in Andhra, Chhatisgarh, Maharashtra , UP & Uttarakhand.
Additionally BJP will be hoping TRS to do well in Telengana to check Congress. Similarly they will expect good showing from YSR Congress in Andhra. In Bihar they will be hoping that allies to do well in 3 seats they are contesting.
Congress will be hoping that National Congress wins in Baramullah, TMC wins 2 seats in Bengal, CPM in Tripura, and SP/BSP combine in UP to keep BJP at bay.
Prominent leaders who are contesting today are Nitin Gadkari (BJP) from Nagpur, Kiren Rijju (BJP) from Arunachal West, Hansraj Ahir (BJP) from Chandarpur- Maharashtra, VK Singh (BJP) from Ghaziabad- UP, Mahesh Sharma (BJP) from GB Nagar – UP. All of them are ministers in union cabinet. From opposition ranks Ashok Gajapati Raju (TDP) from Vizag- Andhra, Asaduddin Owaisi (MIM) from Hyderabad-Telengana, Harish Rawat (Cong) from Nainital-US Nagar- Uttrakhand, Vincent Pala (Cong) from Shillong-Meghalaya.
So in this phase major stake is with Regional Parties.
- Friends, if you are reading news paper then you must have observed, that the candidate when filing for their nominations to contest the elections, they have to file their and their spouse’s income affidavit with the nomination form. I have observed that the income of many candidates have risen by manifold in last 5 years. I do not think their income can grow in crores of Rupees from what they earn as MP. Most of them show their income from agriculture. If they can earn crores of Rupees from their agricultural farms , then I fail to understand , why the farmers can not earn and why they are committing suicides. There are leaders who are holding few acres of agricultural land but their income from agricultural sources is shown in crores. It clearly means that they are showing their income from other sources (in cash) as agricultural income to avoid income tax. Their salary and allowance as MPs are income tax free, with agricultural income also tax free, so in the end they do not pay any income tax. Secondly even if they are not elected for next term, the MPs are supposed to get Life time pension, which is also tax free. It seems that they enjoy on the tax payers money for entire life.
This tax free agricultural income has been bane for last 7 decades. The rich land lords and these politicians will never pay any tax. No political party has guts to abolish this law, of tax free agricultural income.
What you say my friends.
Waiting for your views/comments/feed backs.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
11th Apr 2019
R. N. Mungale.
Agricultural income needs to be taxed.