GST can't be a reality without Cong support: Jairam Ramesh

Deflating the claims being made by the government of getting the goods and services tax Bill passed by isolating the Congress, Jairam Ramesh, party spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member, said: “The GST cannot be a reality without the support of the Congress.”

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley have proposed calling Parliament's special session to get the Bill, a crucial instrument in the government’s economic reform agenda, passed. The Congress has said it has not been consulted and advised the government not to stand on 'false prestige'.  

This being a constitutional Bill, it needs a two–thirds majority in each House of Parliament and cannot be passed through a joint sitting of both Houses.

The FM had on Tuesday questioned how the Rajya Sabha, an indirectly elected House ( where the Congress has a majority) could obstruct decisions taken by the Lok Sabha.

Hitting out at Jaitley, Ramesh said, “The FM has no moral authority when it was Narendra Modi who single-handedly derailed the GST for three years (as Gujarat chief minister). Jaitley is no one to pontificate on GST.”

“The Congress is the architect of the GST and it is in the national interest. The NDA version of the Bill cannot be passed in this form,” he added.

“The Congress is not isolated. The AIADMK, is fundamentally opposed to GST, the DMK, the Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India-Marxist are all opposed to it.

"Even the Janata Dal (United) is not clear in its stand. We are not isolated,” he said.  

The Congress said the issues that have been raised by it have to be addressed. Former finance minister P Chidambaram had stated that the Congress wanted removal of one per cent additional tax, a dispute redressal authority and cap on the GST rate at 18 per cent.

In addition Ramesh said, the party had highlighted in its dissent note, submitted along with the Goods and Services Tax select committee report, that municipal bodies and panchayats also needed to be compensated for the revenue losses they incur after the implementation of GST.     

“GST would have been a reality in 2012 itself, if the BJP had not opposed. The GST in the words of Satya Poddar, an expert, should be a good and simple tax. Jaitley’s GST is neither good nor simple,” added Ramesh.

Image: A labourer prepares to unload sacks of potatoes from a truck at a wholesale vegetable and fruit market in New Delhi. Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters