"It's Election Time": Nitish Kumar's Jibe At Proposed Income Tax Rebate
NDTV
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had proposed slashing the highest surcharge rate on personal income tax and raising the rebate limit to Rs 7 lakh.
"It is election time," Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said, sarcastically, on Thursday when asked if the Union Budget's proposal to raise personal income tax rebate limit would bring relief to the middle class.
"Votewa ka time hai na," the JD(U) leader said in a typically Bihari accent when journalists approached him with the query in Saharsa district which he was touring as part of his mass outreach programme 'Samadhan Yatra'.
Mr Kumar chipped in with the colloquialism even as state Finance Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, who accompanied him, insisted, "The catch lies in the huge exemptions given to those with high incomes, the real beneficiaries."
In the budget presented on Wednesday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had proposed slashing the highest surcharge rate on personal income tax from 37 per cent to 25 per cent and raising the rebate limit to Rs 7 lakh.