Friday, April 8, 2011

Water tax hike: Why senior Congmen baulk to join protest?


Raipur, March 23, 2011

The Congress has intensified its protest against water tax hike in all the districts after Holi, but the party lacked participation of its senior leaders. Defending his partymen, the PCC president Dhanendra Sahu said their protest movement was advancing in right direction and it should not be perceived as weak effort in the absence of some senior leaders.
“We will continue our protest till the government takes back its decision,” Sahu said on Wednesday and hinted that the party’s legislators too would join the bandwagon after conclusion state Assembly’s Budget session.
However, majority of the party workers are upset by the attitude of the senior leaders. They said except gheraoing Chief Minister Raman Singh the party’s big guns never display unity against the government on tax issue.
“We know the party’s MLAs are busy in Vidhan Sabha session but what about other leaders who have suddenly disappeared and refuse to consider water tax hike as major issue,” the workers asked.
Targeting their state president Dhanendra Sahu and working president Satyanarayan Sharma, they said the duo should have at least taken the issue seriously and encouraged them.
Pointing out towards one of the party’s former legislators, who in spite of hailing from Durg had made Raipur as his second home a couple of years back when he contested Lok Sabha polls, they said he only prefer to raise those issues which help him securing adequate media space on the following day.
They did not spare the mayors elected in Raipur, Bhilai, Rajnandgaon and Bilaspur from their party and said the four could have jointly showed resistance against the government but instead each of them want to take advantage of the issue by raising it individually.
They did not even hesitate in alleging that their leaders do not want to burn their skin in scorching heat at dharnas and protests and consider workers most appropriate for such jobs.
The workers fear that their protest movement would end up without producing anticipated result if soon the senior leaders would not join into the campaign.

The PCC president informed that he had already instructed all the DCC presidents to launch movement against tax hike by linking common mass through different methods like signature campaign.
“The Congress first aims to create awareness among the people about the tax hike so that they could understand that how much they would have to shell out after implementation of revised rates from April 1, 2011,” he said.
Sahu further informed that he would also convene a meeting of all the district presidents in the first week of April to chalk out future strategy regarding the tax issue. 
When asked whether the party would call Chhattisgarh bandh against tax hike before March 31, he said, “There is no such plan in the offing. Still, if the government would stick to its obstinacy then we would have to adopt this route to mount pressure on it,” he said.

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