The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his 7, Race Course Road residence, was also attended by party veteran L.K. Advani, BJP President Amit Shah, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Naidu and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj along with other leaders. Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said the incidents of communal tension and intolerance have considerably increased, and the issue should be addressed in the winter session. So they (government) will make sure that there is some discussion on that and, hopefully, it can see the GST bill being passed in this session. “We should not do politics over the questions pertaining to the nation’s development, upliftment of the poor and other such things”, Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said.
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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today offered to discuss with Congress changes in the GST bill but counselled the party to reconsider its suggestions saying some of them can “damage” the system much more than it can benefit.
Urging opposition to enable passage of these bills, Naidu said, “GST Bill is significant for giving a push to economic activity through overhaul of a variety of taxes and enabling the emergence of a single national market in the country”.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan also hosted an all-party meeting ahead of the Winter Session. The Trinamul Congress and BJD have already extended their support to the GST Bill.
There is apprehension among the industry that the winter session will also be a tumultuous one just like the monsoon session, as the winter session is being held in the backdrop of BJP suffering a massive defeat in Bihar, which has further emboldened the Opposition. The government told us that it will hold consultations with the Opposition on the GST Bill.
The NCP had an internal meeting of the party with Sharad Pawar on Nov 19 and it was decided that the party would like Parliament to function and not become confrontationist. “Considering the maximalist position that the opposition – particularly the Congress – had taken last time, the sense one gets is that they have moved away from the maximalist position and now the debate is more around two or three key issues”, said C Jayaram, Joint Managing Director, Kotak Mahindra Bank. Only having a debate on the issue and passing a resolution is not enough.
The federal government had indicated its readiness to look over GST at the issues of the Congress however the details were however to become spelt out.
Asked about debate on “rising intolerance” particularly in the context of controversial remarks of Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan, he said “blanket attack” does not give any solution.
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“We will raise our issues Monday onwards after giving notices”, he told reporters after the meet.
