In BJP’s India, Lungs don’t matter. Votes do - GST Reduced on Bidis
🚬 Bidi baba Politics: How bjp Turned Smoke Into a Vote bank Strategy
Cigars and cigarettes? Sinful, dangerous, and heavily taxed. Bidis? Suddenly not so bad — at least according to BJP’s GST playbook. In a move that reeks of hypocrisy, the Modi government reduced GST on bidis from 28% to 18%, while jacking up the GST on cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco products to a whopping 40%. The message? If you’re rich and smoke, you’re punished. If you’re poor and smoke, you’re protected — not from cancer, but from taxes. Here’s why this is less about health and more about politics:
1. Science Says All Tobacco Kills, bjp Says Only Some Do
The World health Organization doesn’t discriminate — cigarettes, cigars, or bidis, all are harmful. bjp, however, has reinvented medical science with a GST formula: “Bidis are less harmful if they fetch us votes.”
2. The Vote bank Puff
Bidis are predominantly consumed by the lower-income population. Reducing taxes here isn’t public health policy — it’s pure vote bank appeasement. The message to the poor: “Keep smoking, keep voting.”
3. Cigars and cigarettes — The Villains of the Script
bjp hiked GST on cigars and cigarettes to 40%. Why? Because they’re largely associated with the urban middle class and elite. Easier to tax the few than to anger the many. This isn’t about saving lungs, it’s about saving seats.
4. Bidi Barons Laugh All the Way to the Bank
By lowering GST on bidis, the government hasn’t just appeased voters — it’s gifted a jackpot to the bidi industry, one of the most exploitative sectors with poor labor standards. The workers cough, the owners cash in.
5. The Smokescreen of Morality
bjp loves preaching morality — from banning liquor ads to policing lifestyles. Yet when it comes to tobacco, their “principles” vanish in a puff of smoke if it helps secure votes. Hypocrisy couldn’t be lit up any clearer.
👉 Final Puff of Satire:
BJP’s GST policy on tobacco is less about health and more about politics. It proves one thing: under this regime, even cancer-causing products can become “healthy” — as long as they keep the vote bank alive.
🔥 In BJP’s India, lungs don’t matter. Votes do.