Blaming the Congress party of having an ‘obstructionist attitude’ towards the Goods and Services Tax regime, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Sunday that versions of the Constitution Amendment Bill to implement GST by two UPA Finance Ministers — P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee — also did not address the points of dissent being raised by them now.
In a post on his official Facebook page, Jaitley said, “The Congress Party and its leader may be upset with the Government for political reasons…The Congress Party should accept and seriously introspect after having ruled the country for the longest period of time, that negativism hurts the country. Should its obstructionist tendencies inflict an economic injury on the country?”
The Finance Minister gave a point-wise rebuttal to all the eight points of dissent from the Congress. He added that the present Government has not made ‘any significant modifications’ to the legislation which has been accepted and put forth by the previous UPA Government. Jaitley said that while there may be merit in the Congress’ demand for 18 per cent GST rate being put in the legislation, the same was not put forth in the Bill proposed by former Finance Minister and the present President of India Pranab Mukherjee. He added that even former Finance Minister P Chidambaram did not bring up this issue when he negotiated with the Empowered Committee.
Jaitley also pointed out that neither Mukherjee nor Chidambaram had accepted any proposal to make the share of local bodies in revenue buoyancy as part of the Bill.
“The Congress has further proposed that a State or a Union Territory with or without a legislature having a population not exceeding 20 lakh should be given a special status,” Jaitley said.