Oppn threatens to stall House over GST Bill

Spelling fresh trouble for the GST Bill, non-Congress Opposition parties have threatened to stall the indirect tax reform measure, if the government did not address their concerns.

Left parties and the Samajwadi Party flagged their concerns on the GST Bill during a meeting convened by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar and demanded convening of an all-party meeting on the issue.

“There appears to be some match-fixing going on. The GST is not a matter to be resolved between the BJP and  Congress,” Sitaram Yechury, CPM general secretary and Rajya Sabha member, told reporters here.

The Samajwadi Party too was peeved with the Modi government for talking only to the Congress when it came to the GST Bill. On Friday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Kumar had called on Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and his deputy Anand Sharma to thrash out differences on the Bill.

“If the government continues with this strategy, we will start opposing the GST Bill,” Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal said.

Yechury also wanted the government to convene an all-party meeting to arrive at a consensus on the GST Bill, dubbed as the most important indirect tax reform measure.

“Even the previous NDA government, led by A B Vajpayee, used to call all-party meetings to deliberate on important issues. It has not happened for the last two years,” the Left leader added.

Agarwal said the Samajwadi Party has “strong views” on the 1% additional entry tax and capping the GST rate at 18% and demanded a “solemn assurance” from the government on the floor of the House.