Kejriwal woos traders, promises to end 'raid raj'

Jalandhar: AAP supremo and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal reached out to the trading community of Punjab on Sunday, promising to end "raid raj", and help business and trade grow, if his party is voted to power in the 2017 assembly elections.
Kejriwal's statement came at an Aggarwal Vaish Maha Sammelan organized at a banquet here on the Jalandhar-Phagwara highway. Kejriwal criticized income-tax "raids" started by the Centre, saying that traders and businessmen were being terrorized."The government is targeting small traders on the pretext of recovering black money. It should just bring back Vijay Mallya and that would meet their entire targets of black money recovery," he said.
In a bid to woo the trading community with examples from his Delhi government, he said, "Even people who did not vote for us and considered BJP a party of traders are now considering AAP as a party for the traders. We ended raid raj in Delhi and also reduced VAT on several items, even as there was no such demand from us. We understand that if tax is less, traders pay happily and if the rates are increased, they start tax evasion and then inspectors get the opportunity to make money and corruption thrives."
He said most members of the Aggarwal community were businessmen and traders who worked hard.