Modi's comments on taxes show he is traitor: Cong

New Delhi, Jun 11 (UNI) The Congress today described Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as traitor for reportedly asking the people not to pay central taxes as the Centre was discriminating against his state in the matter of assistance.

The BJP should come out clear on the issue by clarifying whether it subscribed to Mr Modi's views, AICC spokesman Manish Tiwari told reporters.

Asked whether the Congress would file a court case against Mr Modi, he said the BJP should first make its stand public.

Mr Modi was quoted as having said that central assistance to Gujarat was about 2.5 per cent of the total tax collection of Rs 40,000 crore from the state.

Strongly condemning this, Mr Tiwari said there was no official mechanism to assess the amount of tax collected from any state.

The spokesman said Mr Modi's statement had to be seen in the context of BJP President Rajnath Singh's demand for replacing the Hindi equivalent of secularism in the Constitution with some other word and RSS General Secretary K S Sudarshan's comment on the Constitution.

He also took strong exception to BJP threatening to take up the case of farmers whose debts were not being waived as promised, stating that the saffron party was makig a mockery of democracy by trying to run kangaroo courts. This was a serious matter which the civil society should take note of, he added.

UNI SN RP KN1818