New Delhi: Congress on Thursday slammed the government for removing the tax exemption status from the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) saying the think tank was being treated as a “deemed political threat” by the BJP government.

“The ‘thought’ is killed first, the ‘democracy’ is next in line… Centre for Policy Research (CPR) is treated as a ‘deemed political threat’ by the Modi government, while it is a bubbling set of ideas and research on policy of various hues. Time to speak up,” Congress General Secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala in a tweet said.

The CPR lost its tax exemption nearly four months after its license for receiving foreign donations was revoked by the Income Tax department.

The CPR, one of the country’s leading public policy think tanks that works with several state governments and Central ministries, has lost the tax exemption status it had for almost five decades.(IANS)