BSP workers cut a 52kg cake to celebrate Mayavati’s 52nd birthday in Allahabad on Tuesday. (PTI)

New Delhi/Lucknow, Jan. 15: Bad news hit Mayavati’s birthday party today — the Congress, accused of plotting to murder her, was brandishing the taxman’s axe.

The income-tax department wants to challenge a tribunal’s exemption on Rs 64 lakh worth of gifts the Uttar Pradesh chief minister received in 2003-04, officials said.

“A final decision will have to be made at higher levels,” they added.

Last month’s verdict of the Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal, Delhi bench, had virtually used the language of birthday cards.

“These gifts (from party supporters) are made out of natural love and affection by donors… element of reverence; veneration or personal esteem and faith all depend upon personal feelings and desire,” the ruling, ridiculed by the Congress and the BJP alike, said.

The tax officials’ problem is that the law that makes gifts from people other than blood relatives taxable came into being only on September 1, 2004. So, the government must prove the rule can be applied with retrospective effect.

In Lucknow, Mayavati’s close aide Satish Mishra met tax lawyers and announced she was ready to fight the case.

“The chief minister thinks it’s a political conspiracy to humiliate her. But she will contest the case,” a two-line reaction from her party said.

Mayavati’s relations with the Centre have been under strain with the Bahujan Samaj Party chief dropping hints at reviewing support.

The income-tax department, which is under the finance ministry, can appeal the tribunal’s verdict till the third week of April. Officials said the 2003-04 gifts under the scanner include Rs 2 lakh in cash and two properties worth Rs 40 lakh and Rs 22 lakh.

A cautious Mayavati, who declared assets worth Rs 52 crore last June, has shown gifts as income in her 2006-07 tax returns. She also paid “advance income-tax arrears” of Rs 14 crore last year, which opponents slammed as an attempt to “legitimise” her wealth.

Finance minister P. Chidambaram, meeting journalists over an informal lunch in Delhi today, said the income-tax department had no objection to her tax returns for 2006-07.

On January 9 this year, though, the department slapped notices on several BSP members who had donated “generously” to Mayavati in 2005. The department has asked for their sources of income.

Which could be one reason that the chief minister today did away with the ostentatious gift-giving that marked her previous birthdays.

Earlier, supporters would place bundles of notes at her feet, with a money-counting machine whirring in full public glare. The only eye-catching gift she received in public this year was a huge cake.