farmers

In a bid to build consensus over immediate roll-back of wealth tax on agriculture land, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal met leaders of Janata Dal (United), Trinamool Congress (TMC) and AIADMK here today seeking their support for the cause.
Badal, accompanied by his deputy and SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal and MPs Harsimrat Badal and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, met JD-U President and NDA convener Sharad Yadav at the latter's residence and sought his party's support to mount pressure on the government to move an amendment to the Finance Bill, 2013 to withdraw the levy of wealth tax on agricultural land.

Badal sought specific exemption to agriculture land from wealth tax where respective courts have upheld levy of the tax on agriculture land.
He expressed apprehensions about social unrest in the country if the proposal was passed and asked Yadav to save the peasantry from wealth tax, "which has sounded a death knell for all including farm labour, small and marginal traders directly or indirectly associated with agriculture".
The Punjab Chief Minister also apprised TMC leader Sudeep Bandyopadhyay and AIADMK leader Thambidurai, who called on the former at the residence of Lok Sabha MP Harsimrat Badal, about the implications of wealth tax which would further destabilize the nation's overall economic scenario in general and Punjab's agrarian economy in particular.