Goans tolerating political parties with initials starting with ABC are now suddenly grappling with parties from the country’s east coast coming all the way to the west coast and setting up camp in a bid to try their hand in winning Goa’s election. Looks like Goa is one big goldmine, but with no mind of its own, therefore the need to import former quiz masters and so-called intelligentsia from other parts of the country to setup base here. Wonder what welcome a Goan party would get, if they attempted to try their luck in the elections of Bengal. With so many parties taking part in Goa’s political stew, it’s just a matter of time we will exhaust all 26 alphabet initials available in the English language.
The parties might be many but the strategies are the same old, such as; poaching individuals who have a slave following in the hope those slaves will follow their leader and vote for the party their leader has made a deal with. Many will be employed by political parties to direct fabricated dirty stories on their rivals so that they can be flooded on your Whatsapp or social media feed in a bid to mess up your already confused mind. But the biggest time tested trick political parties will resort is the ‘art of giving’ technique in the form of promises, free water, jobs or petty cash per vote.
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Nothing against the party from the east, just so the readers know, it is just a political strategy and a dry run to win the general elections in 2024, given Goa’s anger on party C for their overnight ditch and for not performing as expected of an opposition. You see, forget the party in power, there is role to be played by the opposition too, not just by doing theatrics but by putting real performance pressure on the government. A small example is when AAP without even being opposition party promised free water, the government was under pressure to take a decision on free water. Unfortunately the real opposition party C could never perform as per expectations due to fear that central agencies would come after their personal wrong deeds.
If opposition political parties really want to win the general elections in 2024, then they will have to think out of the box by a mile. The government in power is way ahead in forming alliances, buying out opposition guys, and systematically eliminating critical thinking. So if the opposition is going to use the same techniques, than there is no hope for them. Instead the opposition must focus on converting the ‘art of giving’ to the voters into fixing the ‘forcefulness of taking’ from the voters.
For long Indians have paid personal income tax with absolutely no say as to how it is spent. Time has come to free Indians from these taxes by abolishing personal income tax completely and for good. Yes you read that right, abolish personal income tax. A tax that has no doubt generated income for the government but it has also suffocated honest tax-paying citizens. Also personal income tax has never been able to achieve its main purpose of reducing inequality of wealth, so it does not deserve to exist. Government can tweak GST and get compensated of the shortfall that they will lose from personal income tax. Tax the expenditure, not the income.
If the opposition includes it in their manifesto with a time bound promise, it will create a shock to the government, strong enough to put them off balance and go back to the drawing boards to redraw their strategy, while allowing the opposition to put a foot at the door There could be an argument that personal taxpaying citizens are few in numbers and will not matter, true, but it will send a strong message to Indians that don’t fall in the tax bracket that here is a party willing to serve the people without keeping them under their thumb.
It is no rocket science that tax is one of the biggest ammunition the government and its agencies use to harass the citizens, mostly the honest ones. It is also accurate that tax evaders are seldom caught and always find ways to hoodwink the system. So in this cat and mouse game if the mouse has invariably found a way to be smarter than the cat, its better we call it a day and stop the game.
Recently there was a case that went upto the Supreme Court where a NRI had overstayed in India due to the pandemic and did not want to pay tax because of this extended stay technicality. For long the country has acknowledged NRI’s contribution to the country, but NRI’s have got so used to having not to pay taxes in India that they are ready to knock the door of the court to get away from paying. If NRI’s are given special treatment why should India give step motherly treatment to resident Indians who have chosen to stay in the country and slog it out.
This writer is not suggesting NRI’s be taxed but there should be a level playing field for Indians that live in the country. At the moment the situation is such many Indians live overseas just to keep the NRI status and some of them have made it their business to convert black money into white for a consideration while doing nothing worthwhile in their country of residence.
India is cash starved; imagine the amount of black money that will enter into the country’s financial system with the abolishing of income tax. The Government is not going to make that decision if the opposition is not going to put them under performance pressure. No better time than just before elections to include it in the to-do list of the party manifestos. As far as Goa state election is concerned the opposition instead of squatting in the assembly would be better off to include abolishing of state tax on petrol in their manifesto. Has been done earlier and is the need of the hour.
(The author is a business consultant)
