The Congress appears to be not in a mood to relent on the controversial provisions in the Goods and Services Tax Bill and wants the Union government to come out with details of the proposed amendment to the Bill before any decision could be taken on supporting it in the Rajya Sabha.
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Senior Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday played gracious guests at a political lunch hosted by finance minister Arun Jaitley and parliamentary affairs minister Venkaiah Naidu at Parliament House, where external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj too joined them. Both sides said talks were inconclusive and they would be resumed, with Kharge expected to return soon. Both the sides said that the absence of Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, was the reason for not holding a structured discussion on the Bill. The main demand of the opposition parties was to give up the clause of allowing an additional 1 per cent service tax on the goods for every single state through which the goods pass through and also cap the Goods and Service Tax at 18 per cent and constitute a dispute redressal forum.
Coming on the directions of party supremo Sonia Gandhi, Congress women are likely to hold further talks and present a course of action to pursue the bill with the Centre.
The bill intends to simplify the indirect tax regime in the country and broaden the tax base thus resulting in better tax-compliance due to a robust IT infrastructure.
Prospects of movement on the GST grew on Friday with the government submitting some proposals to the Congress in expectation of a response by Monday when Parliament was set to meet again. Speaking at the Aaj Tak Agenda programme, Jaitley said the Congress was changing stance everyday as it believes none other than persons from one family have the right to rule the country. Jaitley said in a Facebook post.
Jaitley said the nation was waiting for parliament to discuss public issues, to legislate and approve a constitution amendment enabling GST.
“The current session of parliament is also threatened with a washout”.
“All this is being indefinitely delayed”.
Since the commencement of this Winter session on 26th of last month, Lok Sabha has passed 6 Bills while 6 new Bills were introduced. Whether we were worthy of it or not is another matter.
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“Did we ask the Prime Minister to insult the Kerala chief minister, which led to trouble in the Lok Sabha?”
