Opposed GST in consumer interest: Cong

The Congress on Wednesday walked the extra mile to send out the message that it had upheld consumer interests and stopped a “flawed” GST Bill for more than a year in Parliament.

At the outset, lead speaker of the Opposition P Chidambaram made it clear that the Congress was never against the idea of GST.

“The Bill introduced in 2014 was opposed. When we saw too many flaws, we opposed the Bill,” Chidambaram told the Rajya Sabha.

He said the Congress agreed to support the Constitution (122nd Amendment) or GST Bill only after the Modi government saw reason in the demands made by the Opposition and made appropriate changes. Bowing to demand from party MPs, the Congress also asked its deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma to speak in Hindi during the debate in a bid to “stamp out” the government “propaganda” that the Congress had created obstacles in its agenda for economic reforms.

“We have not backtracked on our demands. We have persuaded the government to scrap the 1% additional tax proposal. We have warned the government on the dispute-resolution mechanism,” Chidambaram said at an AICC briefing.

The Congress members had voiced concerns over the possibility of the government trying to paint the main Opposition obstructionist and resorting to “propaganda”, claiming that it had given up on its demands.

“If the Bill was not flawed, why was it referred to a select committee? Why did the government amend the Bill considerably,” Chidambaram asked.

He said the Congress dropped its insistence on mentioning the standard GST rate in the Constitution Amendment Bill because some state governments were
not willing to cooperate.

“We have persuaded the government to include the standard rate in the Central GST Bill and the Integrated GST Bill that would be taken up by Parliament later,” Chidambaram said.
DH News Service