New Delhi, Sept. 16 -- Two of India's most outspoken market veterans - Ajay Bagga and Shankar Sharma - locked horns on X over what's really weighing on Dalal Street: high taxes or sluggish growth.

Bagga fired the first shot, blaming India's heavy-handed taxation for choking sentiment. "We will soon complete 13 months of the Nifty being below its all-time high. The golden goose is being butchered in the quest to extract the maximum from the 5-6 crore investors/traders/affluent," he wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

He pointed to South Korea as a contrast, where proposed capital gains taxes were shelved, boosting sentiment and fuelling record highs. Bagga argued that Indian investors are being drained by multiple levies - from STT,...