Gandhi said, “On one hand they are instigating people to take loans, on the other hand they are earning indiscriminately through tax collection.”
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday took a jibe at the Center over tax collection on petrol and diesel, asking whether it was the government or a “greedy moneylender from old Hindi films”. His attack came a day after the Lok Sabha was informed that the central government’s tax collection on petrol and diesel increased by 88 per cent to Rs 3.35 lakh crore in the last fiscal.
Tagging a media report on the issue, Gandhi said, “On one hand they are instigating people to take loans, on the other they are earning indiscriminately through tax collection. Be it the government or old Hindi films.” Greedy moneylender?” The former Congress chief said in a tweet in Hindi using the hashtag ‘tax extortion’.
Excise duty on petrol was raised from Rs 19.98 per liter last year to Rs 32.9 last year on the back of pandemic demand due to fall in international oil prices to a several-year low.
According to a written reply in Lok Sabha by Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameshwar Teli, on diesel it has been increased from Rs 15.83 per liter to Rs 31.8.
This led to an increase in excise duty on petrol and diesel to Rs 3.35 lakh crore in 2020-21 (April 2020 to March 2021) from Rs 1.78 lakh crore a year ago, he said.
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