A day after the ice-breaking evening tea between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, vice president Rahul Gandhi went into a huddle with senior party colleagues to discuss the nitty-gritty of the proposed GST legislation. “The government seeks cooperation for the smooth and efficient functioning of the parliament”, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu told reporters, quoting Modi’s remarks to the meeting.
Advertisement
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had yesterday said that the Prime Minister is willing to speak to everyone to get the landmark indirect tax law through.
Some states ruled by regional parties, including Bihar where Modi’s BJP lost badly in an election this month, have assured their support for the Bill but analysts doubt that tempers can cool quickly enough for progress to be made.
The GST bill has been at the forefront of economic reform for the current government, but the opposition has demanded amendments in some key areas of the bill.
“It will reduce corruption considerably, it will also reduce paper work and will also enhance the GDP of the country by 2-2.5 percent”, he said.
Modi, who attended the meeting briefly, said Parliament should run meaningfully and constructively to fulfill the people’s expectations. “Because once you amend the Constitution, then it is going to take decades before you correct it”, he said.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi said his party was ready to discuss the “very important” tax bill on which it has “very genuine concerns”. “But any major decisions on GST will depend on how well they respond to our demands on the debate on intolerance”, the leader said adding that the discussions on the commitment to Constitution could not deliberate the issue of intolerance in detail. We want the bill to be passed with a broad consensus rather than majority.
BSP supremo Mayawati said “government is saying that the implementation of GST will improve and strengthen the economy”.
“We have absolutely no hesitation even at the level of the Prime Minister”.
Analysts cautioned that while the outlines of a compromise on GST were taking shape, there was no guarantee that a bargain would be struck.
Advertisement
Once the Bill is passed, more than half of the states have to ratify it before Parliament passes another enabling bill to implement GST. The bill proposes to create a GST council to fix the new levy.
