Cong tries to control damage, says Pitroda's view not party's

NEW DELHI:

Congress

dissociated itself from chairman of Indian Overseas Congress

Sam Pitroda

's comments on

inheritance tax

and said his remarks were being sensationalised by the media to create a controversy. The party made it clear that it had no plan whatsoever to introduce inheritance tax and reminded that former PM Rajiv Gandhi had abolished estate duty in 1985.
Party general secretary in-charge of communications

Jairam Ramesh

said "it is the Modi sarkar that has wanted to do so".

To drive home the point, he said then minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha had publicly stated in 2014 that he wanted to introduce inheritance tax. He shared a video of Sinha speaking on the issue, as also a screenshot of a 2014 post on X by BJP's IT department head Amit Malviya in which he supported Sinha's idea to tax inheritance.

"In 2018, then finance minister Arun Jaitley praised inheritance taxes for 'spurring large endowments to hospitals and universities in the West'. News reports had emerged that Modi sarkar would introduce an inheritance tax in the Union budget 2019. Over to you PM Modi - what is your party's stance on this issue?" Ramesh asked.
With his remarks triggering a row, Pitroda said on X, "It is unfortunate that what I said as an individual on inheritance tax in the US is twisted by 'godi media' to divert attention from what lies the PM is spreading about Congress manifesto. Who said something like this should be done in India? Why is BJP and media in panic?"

Reiterating that Pitroda's comments were his own views and not of the Congress, Ramesh said, "Sensationalising Pitroda's comments now and tearing them out of context are deliberate and desperate attempts at diverting attention away from Narenda Modi's malicious and mischievous election campaign; that is anchored in lies and more lies."
In another post, Ramesh said the word "redistribution" did not appear in Congress's 'Nyay Patra' but has, however, appeared before in BJP's election manifestos for the Lok Sabha elections in 1999 and 1996.