Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday indicated that the government would not go ahead with the Constitution Amendment Bill for the Goods and Services Tax in the current Session of Parliament but would work on other Bills in the remaining days of the session.
Hitting out at the Congress over the delay in the roll-out of the indirect tax regime he said the Bill was delayed for collateral reasons.
However, he said, a delayed GST is better than a flawed GST.
"I have no doubt that the attempt to delay (GST) is entirely for collateral reasons. And the only collateral reason I suspect is if I couldn’t do it, then why should somebody else do it?”
Politics should not become a hurdle to the larger interest of the country," he said at the Annual General Meeting of industry body FICCI.
The Finance Minister also re-iterated it would not be possible for the government to accept the Congress party's demand to include the GST rate in the Constitution.
The government was keen to roll out the GST from April 1, 2016, but with the Congress unwilling on three key changes on the Constitution Amendment Bill, it has not been passed by the Rajya Sabha in the Winter Session that ends in December 23.
At an all-party meeting on Friday, it was decided that other Bills would instead be taken up by Parliament. These include amendments to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, a legislation to set up commercial courts, and a bankruptcy code.