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Parliament Monsoon Session LIVE: GST Bill yet another time divides Opposition
Posted On Aug 24 2015
A visibly upset finance minister Arun Jaitley, who addressed the media after the Monsoon session ended in a washout on Thursday, claimed GST would have benefited to the country.
A cabinet panel met in the morning but did not announce any decision on calling a special session of Parliament to push for the GST proposal for creation of a national sales tax replacing a matrix of levies in the 29 states.
Addressing press conferences in different parts of the country to “expose” Congress party, senior union ministers including Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitharaman and Prakash Javadekar also put the blame on the main opposition party for the delay in getting this key reform bill passed. Yet, it has done well to keep open the option of a special session for this goal by adjourning both houses instead of ending the monsoon session.
An ideal GST regime intends to create a harmonised system of taxation by subsuming all indirect taxes under one tax.
No good or service is exempt, and there is no differentiation between a good or service, whether as an input or as a finished product.
Pitching for effective functioning of legislatures, Naidu said the revisited rules should enable free and fair expression of the concerns of the people by the elected representatives without disrupting their functioning. “Even the pretext of stature and dignity was not maintained”, he said.
“The third line is of economically weak states”.
“Economic growth is not GST alone, it is the very foundation of India“.
This would be done in the entire country but specific care would taken to cover all Congress and Left parties’ constituencies to educate people about their disruptive policies, the minister said.
On Thursday, Jaitley said that his government was determined to roll out GST from April next year.
“Passage of Constitution Amendment bill is an enabling provision, he said, adding, “after that 50 per cent of state assemblies have to clear”. After that three other (supplementary) legislations will have to be enacted, one by the states and two by the Centre.
Similarly, the committee examining the Lokpal and Lokayuktas and other related Law (Amendment) Bill has also been given time until September 30 to submit their report.
Congress has 68 MPs in the Rajya Sabha, which is a serious stumbling block for the government. Today, it seeks to go back on the GST issue.
“The Congress wanted in the last session (the bill) sent to the Rajya Sabha Select Committee”.
What is hampering the current government in achieving anything is its utter arrogance and disregard to the opposition, to the democratic institutions, to democracy in general. The chest thumping, ridiculing the opposition leaders, harassing anyone who opposes their idea, labeling the entire opposition or anyone who questions them, however wrong they are, as anti-nationals etc. is unique to this PM and the government. Not contended with his rhetoric at home, the PM doesn’t lose an opportunity to blame and malign the opposition and opposition leaders on foreign soil. In fact this appears to be his main agenda of foreign tours. After the monsoon session instead of correcting themselves and liaising with the opposition on arriving at a common ground to pass crucial legislation, the PM asks his ministers to go all over India and inform (or misinform) the people how bad and how anti-national, anti-development the opposition is as if BJP is the only born patriotic party .