Cricket is the latest benefactor of the compulsion of coalition politics
In his defence of the recent deluge of scams,rising inflation etc and other sliding trends of the UPA govt, the prime minister cited the compulsion of coalition politics as being one of the reasons.
The cabinet meeting over the proposed tax exemption to the revenues from the final of the cricket world cup was divided in it's opinion to exempt Rs.45 crore as tax payable by the cash rich BCCI. While even the honorable sports minister was against this move, it took the silence of the Agriculture minister Mr.Sharad Pawar and the arguments of minister Praful Patel (who heads the apex football body of the country) to convince the government to grant this exemption.
Now surely this is a joke. I am pretty certain that an economist of a Prime Minister would be happy to generate revenue for the nation from ventures where the government doesn't have to expend much money. Yes, 45 crores is probably far lesser than what several cricketers make and there can be various lines of thought as to what the money could have been used for , most notably that it could have been used for other sports development related works.But what is funny is that the government actually considered convening a cabinet meet to decide this. Such urgency was not shown in convening cabinet during crises like price rise and 2G scam.
I do not know if the opposition or RTI would pose this issue with the Prime Minister, but if anyone did, we all know the answer - "Compulsion of Coalition politics " . Mr.Prime Minister and all the political parties have to remember that the people of this country are also default members of every coalition and i hope someday he will feel their compulsions too.
The cabinet meeting over the proposed tax exemption to the revenues from the final of the cricket world cup was divided in it's opinion to exempt Rs.45 crore as tax payable by the cash rich BCCI. While even the honorable sports minister was against this move, it took the silence of the Agriculture minister Mr.Sharad Pawar and the arguments of minister Praful Patel (who heads the apex football body of the country) to convince the government to grant this exemption.
Now surely this is a joke. I am pretty certain that an economist of a Prime Minister would be happy to generate revenue for the nation from ventures where the government doesn't have to expend much money. Yes, 45 crores is probably far lesser than what several cricketers make and there can be various lines of thought as to what the money could have been used for , most notably that it could have been used for other sports development related works.But what is funny is that the government actually considered convening a cabinet meet to decide this. Such urgency was not shown in convening cabinet during crises like price rise and 2G scam.
I do not know if the opposition or RTI would pose this issue with the Prime Minister, but if anyone did, we all know the answer - "Compulsion of Coalition politics " . Mr.Prime Minister and all the political parties have to remember that the people of this country are also default members of every coalition and i hope someday he will feel their compulsions too.
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