New Delhi: In his last speech in the Rajya Sabha on February 7, Prime Minister Narendra Modi equated recent protests by opposition-ruled state governments of Karnataka and Kerala in the national capital to attempts to “break the country”.
Even as chief minister Siddaramaiah staged an unprecedented protest over the Centre’s failure to justly share the tax revenue and mandated special grants to Karnataka, Modi said, “A nation is not just a piece of land for us. If one limb of the body doesn’t function, the entire body is considered disabled. If any part of the country is in pain, it should be felt all over the country. Similarly, if one corner of the country is getting development, the country cannot become developed.”
“The language that is being spoken today, new narratives are being built to break the country. A state government has decided to hit the streets in protest. What can be a bigger misfortune for the country? If an Adivasi child from Jharkhand wins an Olympic medal, will we see them as a child from Jharkhand or from India? What are we saying? What language is being used? Can we say that vaccines were made in one corner so cannot be used by others in the country? Such a mindset is coming out of a national party. It is unfortunate,” he said.
“Our tax, our money! What language is being used? This is dangerous to the future of the country,” he added.
However, Modi as the Gujarat chief minister before 2014 had been the most vocal proponent of a fair devolution of taxes, and frequently attacked the United Progressive Alliance-led Centre for denying Gujarat its fiscal rights – precisely what chief ministers like Siddaramaiah, Pinarayi Vijayan, Mamata Banerjee, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, or M.K.Stalin are currently saying.
Let’s look at a few instances where Modi had publicly registered his dissent over Gujarat’s low share in the devolution of taxes.
In June 2008, while speaking at an event in Vadodara, Modi said that the Centre collects around Rs 40,000 crore as its contribution to the total tax revenue of the country but gets a “measly 2.5%” of the central funds. “If the Centre so wishes, it need not pay anything to Gujarat for a year but then the Union government should also not collect any taxes from the state,” he said.
Four years later, on January 9, 2012, he said at the 10th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, “We are not fortunate enough to get (something) from the Centre or the Prime Minister. We have to do everything on our own.”
“Rajasthan Chief Minister (Ashok Ghelot) said he has the blessings of the central government and the prime minister. But we are not fortunate enough. We don’t get anything. We have to do everything on our own,” he said in his address.
The website narendramodi.in quotes him, “No objective parameters are followed for allocating funds to states for implementation of central government sponsored schemes, which may lead to injustice to certain states”.
“He said the present approach of the Finance Commission favours the states with poor fiscal discipline while leaving the states with higher growth rate disappointed. Mr. Modi said the Commission should change its approach and allocate higher funds to the states that contribute more to the national GDP with a view to give impetus to the development and the creation of infrastructural facilities,” the report notes.
Modi suggested a new formula for the allocation of funds to the states, which should be based on “25% based on population, 5% based on migration, 10% based on area, 35% based on the fiscal capacity distance, 5% based on state’s contribution in national economy and 20% based on the state’s fiscal discipline.”
A year later, in October 2013, in his meeting with the 14th Finance Commission, the then Gujarat chief minister Modi demanded that the Central government should provide 50% of its tax revenues to the states.
Was the Prime Minister trying to break the country as a chief minister? Did the poorer states not need the help of their richer counterparts? These are questions worth pondering over, as the BJP has fiercely attacked the opposition for protesting to secure its fiscal rights.