Congress: Modi Hijacking Credit For GST Changes

The party criticised the reforms as “applying a band-aid after inflicting deep wounds” and demanded that the government apologise for levying GST on essential items.

Reacting to Modi’s address, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge took a swipe at him using the Hindi proverb, “nau sau choohe khakar, billi haj ko chali”. He said, “Narendra Modi ji, instead of the simple and efficient GST proposed by the Congress party, your government imposed the ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’ with nine different slabs, collecting over ₹55 lakh crore in eight years. Now you are talking about a ₹2.5 lakh crore ‘savings festival’ and applying a band-aid after inflicting deep wounds on the public.”

Kharge added, “The public will never forget that you collected GST on pulses, rice, grains, pencils, books, medical treatment, and even farmers’ tractors. Your government should apologise to the people.”

Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh also hit out at the PM, saying Modi’s address sought to “claim sole ownership of the amendments made to the GST regime by the GST Council, a constitutional body.”

The Congress has long described GST as a “Growth Suppressing Tax,” Ramesh said, adding that it is plagued by multiple tax brackets, punitive rates on mass-consumption items, large-scale evasion and misclassification, high compliance costs, and an inverted duty structure (where input taxes are higher than output taxes).

He said the party has been demanding “GST 2.0” since July 2017 and reiterated that this was a key pledge in its Nyay Patra manifesto for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.