Intolerance, GST issues to rock the Winter session of house

“Obviously, neither side expected a breakthrough at the first go”.

That loss, say aides and analysts, means Modi will have to show more willingness to compromise on the GST after Congress – which first proposed the tax when it was in government – set a series of non-negotiable demands.

Sonia and Singh are learnt to have restated the three principal objections the Congress has to the NDA government’s reworked bill.

The PM’s reaching out to the mainline Opposition was due to tremendous public pressure, said Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who was not invited to the discussion.

The Opposition has a clear agenda as well, including provocative statements of ministers and MPs of the BJP, price rise and food inflation, agrarian problems and farmer suicides, communal tensions, shrinking of space for democratic dissent and dialogue, the murder of the dalit children in Faridabad and Union Minister VK Singh’s subsequent remarks, rise in excise duty of petrol, foreign policy setbacks in Nepal and the Maldives, women’s safety, the Bank of Baroda scam, the black money stashed overseas issue, and the outcome of the PMs foreign visits.

This was explained to them during the meeting.

Briefing the media after the meeting, Jaitley said “various issues” relating to the winter session were discussed, including the GST bill.

Congress leaders have accepted the invitation. “If needed, again, we will talk”, he added.

Jaitley said the government has also considered the position the opposition has taken.

On constituting a dispute resolution authority, the government is armed with file notings of ministers in the United Progressive Alliance government, where they had advocated that the GST council be empowered to constitute such an authority when a dispute arises.

An additional tax of 1 per cent will be levied and collected by the Centre on the supply of goods and services in inter-state trade. “It is for the government to get back to us”, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said.

Another Congress leader Pramod Tiwari asserted that the opposition would give its nod to the GST Bill only if it is in the benefit of the people.

Singh’s role in bringing about a meeting between the two most powerful political leaders in the country should not be under-estimated but experts also warned against reading too much into it. It does not necessarily signal a change in the political attitude of Singh, they said. The Gandhis, however, insisted today the visit was “purely social”. Government sources said it was amenable to discussing all these issues.

Highlighting the importance of a healthy discussion in the Parliament, he said the spirit of discussion in the Lok Sabha is “us” and not “me” or “you”. In the recently held Bihar polls, the BJP and its allies were trounced by the Grand Alliance comprising Janata Dal (United), Rashtryia Janata Dal and Congress which clinched 178 seats in the 243 member house.