New Delhi, June 11 (IANS) The Congress Wednesday said Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks questioning the tax revenue sharing with the central government was nothing less than an “assault on the idea of India”. Modi’s statement that Gujarat should not pay taxes to the central government and in turn the state should not ask for any aid smells anti-national, Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said, adding: “The statement is an assault on the idea of India.”

Addressing a function in Vadodara Sunday, Modi had said Gujarat gives Rs.400 billion as taxes to the central government and receives only 2.5 percent of it in return and rhetorically challenged the central government to stop collecting taxes from the state and also stop aid to the state.

“This is totally a baseless statement and I strongly condemn it as there is no such system in the government machinery to evaluate as to how much tax a state gives to the central government,” Tewari said.

He further asked if this was the Bharatiya Janata Party’s “dream of an ‘Akhand Bharat’ (undivided India)”.

“In the history of independent India never has any chief minister of a state has said that it should not give taxes to the centre. Instead of registering anti-national cases against journalists, anti-national cases should be filed against the chief minister of Gujarat,” he added,