This story is from November 29, 2016

BJP’s Catholic MLAs asked to clarify stand on I-T notice

Monday saw widespread condemnation of the notice sent by the Income Tax department to the Goa Church authorities for submission of the now-defunct 500 and 1,000 currency notes.
BJP’s Catholic MLAs asked to clarify stand on I-T notice
Representative image
MARGAO/PANAJI: Monday saw widespread condemnation of the notice sent by the Income Tax department to the Goa Church authorities for submission of the now-defunct 500 and 1,000 currency notes.
Nuvem MLA Francisco Pacheco alias Mickky on Monday hit out at the BJP government over the demonetization issue and subsequent notices issued by the income tax department to the Church.
While he termed the scrapping of the high denomination notes as "dictatorship", he said that the I-T notices reeked of communalism.
"This is selective targeting of the minorities as the government wants to take forward its agenda of Hindutva," Pacheco said, while addressing mediapersons.
He further urged all Catholic MLAs in the BJP-led government in Goa to "come out" and "make your stand clear" over the I-T notice to the Church.
"Catholics, who had supported the BJP in the last elections, should now think 10 times. Christmas is around the corner, and the poor are unable to withdraw money from their own bank accounts. Who has given the government this right? It is the common man who has been affected more by this than the black money hoarders. This is an attack on religion. Why only is the Church targeted when we know of big temples stashing huge amounts of wealth?" Pacheco said, adding that people will "show the BJP its place" in the forthcoming assembly elections.

His former bete-noire Churchill Alemao, who is now with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), said that never in the past, the I-T department had targeted any religious institution and wondered why it has been done this time.
At a press conference in Panaji, Alemao condemned the issue of notices suspecting that the BJP was behind it. Alleging that it reeked of communalism, Alemao wondered why only the archdiocese has been slapped with notices and no other religious bodies.
State NCP president Jose Philip D'Souza, ridiculing the claim of BJP that demonetization is to unearth black money, questioned why the BJP has not been issued notices by I-T department.
"Crores of rupees are being spent on political rallies by the party as food and money are given for attending the meeting. So why is the I-T department blind to the high expenditure incurred on such rallies," D'Souza asked.
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