“It was incidentally the chief minister who invited Prime Minister, Modi in the first instance, on the request of Vellapally Natesan general secretary, Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam to unveil the statue”, the Congress said in a statement. The Congress, which is the single largest party in the Upper House, has found support from Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati on the issue. He said the Congress has differences on three points with the government in the current format of the Bill – the dispute mechanism, involving stakeholders in settling disputes and no cap on tax that can be levied by the government.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called Sonia Gandhi and former PM Manmohan Singh for a meeting at his residence to break the deadlock on the GST.
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.
The meeting today came as Government decided to make a fresh bid to break the logjam.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said the government has walked the extra mile to explain the Goods and Service Tax (GST) to the Congress but they only seemed bent on “paralysing the country”.
It also asked the Congress leadership to apologise to the nation “for trying to create hurdles in the country’s progress and attacking the interests of 125 crore Indians”. Parliament’s winter session ends four days later.
He said he would not like to comment on the issue that is under investigation.
“Congress party is on one side stalling the proceedings of both the houses of parliament and on the other side Rahul Gandhi is making baseless allegations”.
The party wants a constitutional amendment to safeguard this provision.
Sonia and Rahul have nothing to worry because “they have not received a rupee benefit”, the former finance minister said, while raising questions over Modi government’s role saying it had acted hastily on a “private complaint” to reopen a shut case.
“All this is being indefinitely delayed”. In an article on his Facebook page, Mr Jaitley apprehended a “wash out” of the current Winter Session of Parliament.
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Jaitley also questioned law makers by reminding them of a speech made by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on the last day of first Lok Sabha in which he said that Parliament is responsible for the governance of India. Whether we were worthy of it or not is another matter.
