Ready to explain GST to Rahul, says Goyal

Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal took a jibe at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for calling Good and Sales Tax a ‘half-baked’ reform, saying that he was always ready to explain to him about the GST "but let him return to India first."

Speaking at an event a day after the GST rollout, he said, "I am ready to meet Rahul Gandhi and explain him about GST but let him come back to India first. I am always free to explain GST to him in a very simple language so that he can understand."

Congress vice president Rahu Gandhi, who is on a holiday, had tweeted that said the tax reform measure was being rushed through in a "half-baked" manner as a "self-promotional spectacle."

Goyal said, “It is unfortunate that the Congress disassociated itself from GST launch and termed it ‘tamasha’.”

He was responding to a question on senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh’s remarks that ‘the government appropriated all credit after opposing it for 10 years and the manner it was launched was a ‘grand selfie tamasha.’

But, Goyal said, Ramesh had mentioned that the Congress party was not against the GST but it had some reservations with the event. “They (political parties who skipped GST midnight launch event) were not against the GST, which is an outcome of a collective effort of all political parties,” said Goyal, adding that people who oppose GST should look at it from a development perspective.