Jammu lawyers stopped work on Thursday and threatened an agitation against the government’s decision to levy property tax in Jammu and Kashmir, in another worrying sign for the Centre whose policies are failing to cut ice with the “nationalist” and largely pro-BJP Dogra population.
Separately, Jammu and Kashmir BJP chief Ravinder Raina was confronted by the media in Jammu over the tax.
The BJP leader was forced to distance his party and the Centre from the decision and question lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha for passing the order without consultations with the people. Jammu lawyers struck work in response to a call by Bar association president M.K. Bharadwaj, who said the property tax — a first for Jammu and Kashmir — was “anti-people” and an example of “tax terrorism”.
He warned of street agitations if the order was not withdrawn. Bharadwaj questioned the authority of the LG’s administration to take “important decisions”, iterating that an elected government alone can do it. The decision has put the BJP in a spot as the administration in Jammu and Kashmir is directly run by the Centre.
Raina, the party’s Jammu and Kashmir chief, got a taste of public anger against the tax order on Thursday when he entered the party office.
“You will have to answer. Has the gulf between the LG’s administration and the BJP widened? Is there nobody to listen to you at the Raj Bhavan? Is this how you will get 50 (seats in the Assembly to form a government on its own)?” were some of the questions journalists raised as they blocked him from entering the office.
“Will you attack me this way as if I have signed the property tax (document)…? Why are you after the BJP? It is not the BJP’s decision. It is not the Centre’s decision, not a Modi government decision,” Raina replied.
The BJP leader said he had heard the commissioner secretary, housing and urban development, say that the tax was imposed to help the state avail the necessary central funding, but he did not agree.
“My opinion is that people should be consulted,” he said.
