In UP, income tax for CM and ministers is paid by the treasury, since 1981

International News
The Uttar Pradesh state government exchequer has been paying the income tax of all the chief ministers and ministers since 1981, reports Times of India. A law, Uttar Pradesh Ministers' Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Act 1981, passed by then Chief Minister VP Singh, stated that since the ministers were poor and had meagre salaries and could not afford to pay the tax. It should be noted that UP is one of the poorest states in India.
Since then UP had 19 Chief Ministers and over 1,000 minsters.
A section of the Act says, “Every minister and minister of state shall be entitled, throughout term of his office, to a salary of one thousand rupees per month. Every deputy minister shall be entitled, throughout the term of his office, to a salary of six hundred and fifty rupees per month. "The salary referred to in sub-sections (1) and (2) shall be exclusive of the tax payable in respect of such salary (including perquisites) under any law relating to income tax for the time being in force, and such tax shall be borne by the state government.”
The list of chief ministers who have had the UP treasury pay their tax includes Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, Mayawati of Bahujan Samaj Party, and the incumbent Yogi Adityanath.

 In the current financial year, the income tax bill of Adityanath and his council of ministers was around Rs 86 lakh and was paid from the state treasury. UP principal secretary (finance) Sanjiv Mittal, confirmed as much to Times of India.

Four crucial messages emerging from the Mayawati-Mulayam kiss-and-make-up

Election News

When Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav recently held a joint rally in Mainpuri in which the Bahujan Samaj Party chief appealed to the public to vote for Mulayam Singh Yadav, it created a new political frame that sough to bury the long-standing animosity between the BSP and the Samajwadi Party.

It may be recalled that the two parties fell out in response to the 'guesthouse scandal' in Lucknow 24 years ago, when the Mayawati outfit's withdrawal of support to the coalition led to the collapse of Mulayam Singh government in 1995.

But in this rally, Mayawati, seated between Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav, accorded full respect to the SP patriarch when he came on the dais. The body language of the three leaders reflected good chemistry between these once political rivals. Mulayam Singh Yadav appealed to his supporters to respect Mayawati, stating that she always extended support when it was needed. Mayawati, on her part, appealed strongly to her supporters to vote for Mulayam Singh and the gathbandhan in this election, asserting that he was the real leader of the backward classes, unlike Narendra Modi, whom she called a fake backward.

What are the messages that emerged from this joint rally and what will their impact be in the 2019 elections long-term politics of Uttar Pradesh?


 The first is that Mayawati was trying hard to convince her followers to support Mulayam Singh Yadav and other candidates of the gathbandhan, most of whom are Samajwadi leaders in a region in which the third phase of polling will take place in UP. This domain is typically a Yadav bastion and is famously called ‘Yadav-Land’, although it has a sizeable population of Muslims as well. The constituencies here include Sambhal, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etah, Badaun, Aonla, Bareilly, and Pilibhit. This is an area where the Yadavs own lands on which many Dalits work as landless labourers. It is also a region in which an emergent rural and urban Dalit middle class is lending voice to its weaker brethren...Read More