One Parivar, two views

Even as the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the trade union wing of the RSS, Saturday picked holes in the Union Budget, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM), another RSS affiliate, welcomed the government’s move to bring down the list of tax exemptions for corporates because the exemptions had been a major cause of revenue foregone.

Vrijesh Updadhyay, general secretary of the BMS, said: “The government has facilitated the corporate sector by decreasing corporate tax and abolishing wealth tax. But there is no increase in the income-tax limit of the salaried class. Nor is there any increase in the honorarium to aanganwadi/Aasha workers. This shows the Union government has neglected the working class.”

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“There is no provision for social security in the Budget. There is no addition in MGNREGA too. The labourers were looking for achhe din, but it has not come so far,” he added. The BMS has decided to protest against the “attitude” of the central government on March 2 in the national capital.

SJM co-convenor Ashwani Mahajan, on the other hand, said, “They are inching towards shortening the list of exemptions. It is a welcome step, but more is to be done.”