Rahul’s comments provoked Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who hit back saying the Congress was playing politics of obstruction, which was anti-development since it was blocking the passing of the economic reform GST bill.
Advertisement
“The government observes that in the pretext of Sushma Swaraj, the real motive of the Congress is that they don’t want the GST Bill to be passed”.
The bill was passed in the Lok Sabha in May and a Select Committee of the Upper House has already endorsed nearly all the 21 clauses in the bill. “Congress is using Swaraj only as an excuse to block the GST Bill”, Jaitley said.
Amidst slogan shouting and uproar, the House witnessed some lighter moments when Chairman Hamid Ansari, while welcoming a delegation of Bhutanese MPs, said “we hope that during their stay here they would be able to see and learn more about our parliamentary system”.
On Monday, when a Joint Committee of Parliament looking into the land bill and headed by BJP Lok Sabha MP SS Ahluwalia met to finalise its report, it was given time till the Winter Session. The Congress Party could pin her down during the course of a televised debate and try and explain its own decision to stall Parliament for almost three weeks without achieving anything worthwhile. Their fears stem from the fact that GST will subsume all taxes that the States now charge at the factory gate etc and will instead be levied and collected at the point of consumption. GST can boost India’s GDP by 1-2 per cent.
Earlier, no sooner had the House met for the day, Congress and JD-U members were on their feet raising different issues.
Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das said: “We have to wait for what Parliament decides on GST”.
The government proposed to empower the States to collect the one per cent additional levy over and above the GST during the transition period of two years to provide a cushion to the manufacturing States.
“Delay in implementation of the GST (goods and services tax) and continued disruption in parliament will have an adverse impact on India’s growth”, he said.
Advertisement
The report of the Rajya Sabha Select Committee was tabled in Parliament last month. However, the Congress, AIADMK and left parties had submitted dissent notes on the same.
