Ludhiana News/Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal challenges state unit of BJP

To teach lesson in Lok Sabha -2014 elections
Ludhiana, November 17, 2013: Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal under the leadership of state president Amrit Lal Jain held a delegates conference here on Sunday, in which it decided to hold a “Mahapanchayat” of Traders from across the state in the future.
Addressing the media persons after presiding over the delegates’ conference, Jain added they would seriously think over participating “politically” in elections in the future. He added he himself would not contest any political election but he would surely extend full support to all those traders who would be willing to contest. A decision to this effect would be taken in “Mahapanchayat” of Traders- the time and date of which would be announced at a later stage.
Jain told that there were around five lakh registered and unregistered VAT dealers in Punjab. As such, they had a vote bank of around 50 lakh electorates in Punjab, he said, adding they would not decide to teach a “lesson” to the ruling SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab, especially  BJP, which claimed to be working for cause of urbanites. Whereas the fact was opposite to the BJP’s claims, as trade and industry was getting ruined due to “faulty” policies of the ruling state government in Punjab.
He gave an open challenge to state unit of BJP and said it would have to pay price for its misdeeds in Lok Sabha polls next year.
Jain strongly opposed the state government’s move to introduce single stage taxation and said “it is against the basic principles of value added tax (VAT)”. He said single stage taxation had been implemented under Sales Tax regime before April 1, 2005, and suggested to the deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal to definitely read white paper related to VAT regime which stated that no entry tax, no octroi, no advance tax and no single stage tax could be implemented after introduction of VAT regime. He said it was totally illegal and against the VAT spirit to introduce single stage taxation. He said part of ST regime could never be run under VAT regime. Moreover, the Centre was about to bring GST next year after which even VAT regime would get buried.
He said they would go for peaceful strikes, protests and demonstrations after thoroughly studying notification related to single stage taxation once it is issued in the future. He regretted that on one hand the state government was collecting about fifty per cent of the total revenue from VAT dealers and on the other side it was calling them thieves. He also opposed e-TRIP system and claimed that it had ruined 50 per cent business of yard dealers in Ludhiana alone.
Jain told that they would even go for state-level Punjab Bandh, if single stage taxation was introduced in the state. He asked traders to wake up their conscious. He regretted that the Opposition was silent on all these issues and did not speak even a single word in Punjab Assembly when decisions related to traders were taken in the recent past.
The conference among others was attended by the Mandal’s senior vice president Piara Lal Seth, state general secretary Sunil Mehra, state secretaries LR Sodhi, Mohinder Aggarwal and Dhani Ram Gupta. Delegates from 34 cities of Punjab participated in the conference.