Gaur: Local businessmen have launched a protest after goods from the Taxpayers’ Service Office in Gaur were secretly loaded onto trucks and taken away.
After office materials from the Taxpayers’ Service Office began being loaded onto trucks and transported to the tax office in Simara, Bara, on the eve of the elections, local industrialists and businessmen blocked the move and had the loaded goods unloaded again. The goods were unloaded and placed back in the office after officials from the Rautahat Chamber of Commerce and Industry, local businessmen, and political parties sat on the road and created a blockade.
Santosh Kesari, General Secretary of the Rautahat Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that although a large number of security personnel were present when the businessmen created the obstruction on the road, the goods loaded on the trucks were placed back in the office. He stated that they had to sit on the road demanding the re-establishment of the office after materials were attempted to be taken away at a time when the country is focused on elections.
Youth leader of Nepali Congress and Chief of the Publicity Department for Madhesh Province, Nitesh Kumar Gupta, reacted by saying that the government’s intention to move the office in a stealthy manner raises serious questions, and their stance is that the government should immediately ensure the full operation of the Gaur Taxpayers’ Service Office from its own building.
CPN-UML leader and candidate Ajay Kumar Gupta, Communist Party of Nepal leader Rebant Jha, and Rastriya Swatantra Party candidate Rajesh Chaudhary, who reached the protest site, alleged that moving the office on the eve of the elections is an attempt to disrupt the polls. They stated that the government itself is working to sabotage the elections.
They said that instead of providing convenient and accessible services to businessmen, moving the existing office elsewhere is highly objectionable and an anti-Madhesh act.
Furthermore, the Rautahat Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called for a complete closure of industries and markets in protest against this action, which goes against a previous agreement made with the Chief District Officer.
