Helipad at Vaishodevi Bhawan (vaishnodevihelicopter.net.in)
The BJP has stepped in to have a tax imposed by the Jammu and Kashmir government on helicopter rides to the famous Vaishno Devi shrine withdrawn, the party's Ram Madhav said today, soon after the Congress called it Prime Minister Narendra Modi's version of the "Jaziya tax."
The BJP participates in the J&K government led by Chief MInister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's People's Democratic Party or PDP, which announced today that a 12.5 per cent tax would be imposed on sale of tickets for commercial helicopter services in the state.
The move was seen as aimed at fetching substantial revenue from chopper services to ferry pilgrims to the Vaishno Devi and Amarnath shrines.
"The BJP high command has conveyed to the Jammu and Kashmir leadership that this should be reversed. Deputy CM Nirmal Singh spoke to the chief minister last night. It has been withdrawn immediately," said Mr Madhav in Delhi.
The Congress' Abhishek Singhvi had a short while before said, ""Is this Mr Modi's definition of Jaziya tax on pilgrims to Vaishno Devi?" He was referring to a tax imposed on Hindus by Mughal emporer Aurangzeb, who ruled in 1658.
Mr Singhvi accused the government of "trying to control" the number of people that visit shrine and of hurting "the faith of people." Helicopters rides, he said, are booked by "ordinary families for their aged parents, those physically challenged and children....who cannot undertake the 26 kilometre trek but are keen to do 'darshan'."
Reports said with the new levy a chopper trip from Katra near Jammu to the cave shrine in the Trikuta Hills and back would cost Rs 2,340 instead of Rs 2,078.
In December last year, J&K voted for a hung assembly and it took months for the PDP, a regional party, and the BJP to get over deep ideological differences and join hands to form government. The PDP won the most seats, 28, sweeping the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley.
The BJP won its best-ever result in India's only Muslim-majority state, but its gains were made entirely in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region.
The partnership has been uneasy right from the beginning when they differed over the release of a separatist Masarat Alam from jail.