BSP stages walkout from UP Legislative Assembly

BSP today staged a noisy walkout from the Legislative Assembly on the issue of additional tax being charged on manufacturing urea, accusing the Uttar Pradesh government of being “anti-farmer”.

Raising supplementaries to a question by BJP’s Shyamdev Roy Chaudhary over tax being charged on the natural gas used in urea manufacture in the state, Leader of Opposition Swami Prasad Maurya (BSP) sought to know if government had any plan to withdraw it in the interest of farmers.

Referring to the reply by Minister of Secondary Education Vijay Bahadur Pal that the cost of a bag of urea in UP was Rs 50-60 more than the neighbouring states, Maurya alleged the state cannot escape from its responsibility by blaming the Central government for everything.

UP Parliamentary Affairs minister Azam Khan said his party was “committed” to solving farmers’ issues.

Taking a jibe at BSP, he said urea is for farmers and is of no use to elephants (BSP’s election symbol).

Accusing the government of being “anti-farmer”, BSP members raised slogans against the SP government befoe staging a walkout.

In the reply, the government said that Rs 47 is charged per sack of urea as ACTN (entry tax) and chances of urea being smuggled from neighbouring states were low.

The government also said that withdrawing additional tax on the natural gas used in manufacture of urea will result in heavy loss of revenue for the state.