New Delhi: Amid talk of a special session of Parliament being convened sometime next month to pass GST bill, Congress on Wednesday bluntly told the Narendra Modi government that the key reform measure cannot be passed without its support, suggesting that its concerns needed to be taken on board.
The party also hit back at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley saying that he has no moral authority to attack the opposition on stalling the measure issue given the fact that Narendra Modi had "single handedly sabotaged" it for three years when he was Gujarat Chief Minister.
"In politics, there is a thought and an afterthought", party leader Jairam Ramesh told reporters taking a dig at Jaitley who had accused Congress reservations to the GST in its present form as an "after thought".
"BJP, Narendra Modi and Yashwant Sinha (who was Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance in the last Lok Sabha) are responsible for the delay in GST", Ramesh said.
Ramesh said that as Union Minister he had himself gone to Gandhinagar in September 2012 and had met Modi to garner support of the BJP to the measure, but Modi had "single handedly sabotaged" it. "GST at that time came to be known as Gujarat Sabotage Tax", he said taking a dig at Modi.
Dismissing suggestions that Congress was isolated on the GST issue, he said the Left parties and AIADMK and DMK were also opposed to the measure. He said what the Congress wanted is a "good and simple tax" which the one proposed by the government is not.
A meeting of the Parliamentary Select Committee which went into GST had seen over a fortnight back senior officials of Gujarat opposing the measure, committee sources said adding that one per cent additional tax is being proposed to placate Gujarat.
Ramesh said that his party was not aware of any special session of Parliament being called as it has not been taken into confidence so far.
Reports had it that government is in talks with all political parties to get the requisite 2/3 majority in Rajya Sabha where the NDA is in a minority. Congress - which had initiated the GST Bill in 2006 – is strongly opposed to it in the present form and is insisting on three key amendments, including capping the tax at 18 per cent and removing the one per cent additional tax. Finance Minister has ruled out incorporating these changes.
Government is keen on meeting the April 1, 2016 deadline for the implementation of the landmark tax system that would arguably increase the country's GDP by one to 1.5 per cent.
After both Houses of Parliament clear the constitutional amendment, half of the states will have to pass it.
