On August 29, Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal tabled a ‘vote of confidence’ in the Assembly. During his address in the house, he spoke about several issued and presented his party’s stand by bluntly using misinformation and lies.

‘Tax on wheat, lassi etc. causing inflation’

At the beginning of his address, CM Kejriwal claimed that people have stopped buying vegetables at one time and reduced consumption of milk and milk products because of inflation. He said this was for the first time in the history of Independent India that curd, honey, wheat, rice and other products had been taxed. He further claimed not even the British government imposed a tax on these things before independence.

The matter of tax on food items, including curd, wheat etc., was cleared by Union Finance Minister in the month of July after there were reports that these items were going to get costlier because of GST. In a series of Tweets, Nirmala Sitharaman pointed out that before GST was implemented, states were charging VAT or Value Added Tax on food grain that varied from one per cent to six per cent.

It must also be noted that items specified below in the list, when sold loose, and not pre-packed or pre-labeled, will not attract any GST. (10/14) pic.twitter.com/NM69RbU13I

— Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) July 19, 2022

After the implementation of GST, there were some issues faced due to the non-uniform taxation system for branded and non-branded packed items. Upon the request of the stakeholders, the decision was taken in the presence of all state representatives to impose a uniform tax only on the packed items. If these items are sold loose, no GST will be implemented. Items that were exempted from taxes if sold lose include pulses, wheat, oats, maize, rice, curd, lassi, besan, puffed rice and more.

‘Govt imposed a tax on Garba’ claimed Kejriwal

The second blunt lie that Kejriwal told in the Assembly was about imposing a tax on Garba. This incomplete and ill-informed statement that was made by Kejriwal in the Assembly was busted weeks ago. Kejriwal said, “Gujarat is known for Garba Dance. People worship Devi Maa during Navratri and do the Garba with devotion. But now they have imposed a tax on Garba as well.”

On August 4, OpIndia did a fact-check on the claims that were circulating on social media about the tax on Garba events. Congress and AAP were spreading misinformation that GST was implemented at Garba events. The fact, however, is that the state government has not imposed any fresh GST on Garba or any such event. Basically, prior to the implementation of GST, service tax on the entrance to such events was imposed at a rate of 15% if the ticket price per person was greater than Rs 500. In addition to service tax, VAT was also levied on goods used for organizing such events.

Notably, when Goods and Services Tax (GST) came into effect on July 1 2017, under the government’s ‘One Nation, One Tax’ policy, it subsumed 17 large taxes and 13 cesses levied by the central and state governments like VAT, octroi, luxury tax, purchase tax, and central taxes like customs duty, central excise duty, and service tax.

The 18% GST on the admission ticket for Garba or any such event if the price of entry is above Rupees 500 per person has been applicable from January 1, 2018, and not introduced this year as being peddled by some media houses and the opposition parties. Since then, the position has remained the same.

Notably, GST is only levied on tickets that cost more than Rs 500 for professional Garba events held at party sites, clubs, and stadiums. Residential societies are organizing Garba and issuing tickets to residents, if under 500, they are not taxed.

The lies about loan waivers

Next, CM Kejriwal talked about loan waivers that never happened. He said, “There are friends of this government. These friends are billionaires. They took thousands of crores worth of loans from the banks. After taking the loans, they intended not to repay them. They approached the government and asked for a loan waiver. The government imposed a tax on food items and used that money to waive their loans.”

Not only Kejriwal but many other opposition leaders have been using the confusion between loan waiver and loan written-off. Even BJP leader Varun Gandhi who is showing signs of rebellion, just listed Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha, spread misinformation about loan waivers.

On August 7, OpIndia did an explainer on loan waiver and loan written-off with details on how these leaders wrongly implicated the data provided by the government in the Parliament. Their ill-informed tweets were based on a post made by the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA). Also, likes of Kejriwal used newspaper clippings clearly mentioning loan written-off as loan waiver.

On August 2, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Dr Bhagwat Karad, informed the Lok Sabha that in the past five financial years, commercial banks have written off bad loans worth Rs 9,91,640 crores.

He further added that as per data provided by the Central Repository of Information on Large Credits (CRILC) database of the Reserve Bank of India, there were 2,207 willful defaulters in 2019 having aggregate credit exposure of Rs 5 crore and above. In 2020, the number went up to 2,469, followed by 2,840 willful defaulters in 2021 and 2,790 in 2022.

Speaking on the recovery of bad loans, MoS Karad mentioned that SBI had recovered Rs 41,006.94 crores of bad loans that were waived off during that period, and the process of recovering the remaining bad loans is in the process by the bank. Similarly, Union Bank of India recovered Rs 6,955.12 crores, Punjab National bank recovered 11,821.37 crores, Bank of Baroda recovered Rs 9,540.04 crores, and Canara Bank recovered Rs 7,348.52 crores. The government of India is using all possible means to recover the bad loans, and the results are visible in the stats. In recent years, the recovery process and paced up, and year-wise, recovery has increased for almost all commercial banks.

Not to forget, it was reported in February 2022 that Rs 18,000 crores were recovered from three defaulters, including Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi.

As per the data misrepresented by CM Kejriwal as “waived off” loans, the banks recovered 1,32,035.78 crores between Financial Years 2017-18 and 2021-22. Contrary to the claims made by Kejriwal, the waived-off loans are being recovered with the help of relevant agencies. Even if the accused have fled India, like in the case of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, the government agencies and judiciary are working together to recover the money.

‘Fuel tax used in operation lotus’

Further in his address, Kejriwal claimed that the government of India is using tax collected on fuel to fund “operation lotus”. He alleged that the money the union government collects from the taxes on petrol and diesel is being used for “purchasing MLAs” across states. He further claimed BJP offered Rs 20 crores to 12 of his MLAs, but they refused to leave AAP and join BJP. Kejriwal said, “If they are offering Rs 20 crores to all MLAs they have bought in recent years, they must have spent Rs 5,540 crores to buy 277 MLAs in different states.”

First of all, Kejriwal conveniently skipped the fact that his government collects tax on fuel as well. As per an April 28 report in the Times of India, Delhi has imposed Value Added Tax (VAT) of Rs 17.13 per litre on Petrol and Rs 14.12 per litre on diesel. The base price of petrol was Rs 56.32 per litre, freight charges were Rs 0.20, the union government’s excise duty was Rs 27.90, and the dealer’s commission was Rs 3.86 per litre in case of petrol.

In the case of diesel, the base price was Rs 57.94, freight charges were Rs 0.22, excise duty was Rs 21.80, and dealer commission was Rs 2.59. As per the report, from April 2021 to December 2021, Delhi collected Rs 2713 crores from VAT and Sales Tax on fuel. Despite being the smallest state, Delhi collected VAT from more than nine states, including Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Sikkim, and Mizoram.

Coming to operation lotus is just a figment of the imagination of AAP, possibly to divert attention from the corruption charged its MLAs and ministers are facing. It is ironic of CM Kejriwal to accuse BJP of corruption when one of his ministers Satyendra Jain, is in custody and Deputy CM of Delhi Manish Sisodia is facing accusations of scam in liquor policy.

‘BJP is furious as we made so many schools’

During the address, CM Kejriwal claimed that his government had built many schools in Delhi. However, whenever a question arises of how many schools the Delhi government has built, no data is presented by the Kejriwal government. Kejriwal recently dodged the question by Assam CM Hemanta Biswa Sarma where he had asked Kejriwal about the new schools built by his government. They have upgraded and added classrooms but it is unclear how much difference has it made. Recent reports of schools running without headmasters, and no science classes in over 60 per cent of the schools have added to red flags about the education policy of the Delhi Government.

During the session, Rakhi Birla, the AAP MLA who laughed at the “Kashmir Files” remarks of CM Kejriwal, was in the chair.