Govt slams Congress for stand on GST reforms; says it smacks of hypocrisy

The government on Saturday lashed out at the opposition Congress for attempting to take credit for the biggest GST reforms, saying the party was not even present in Parliament when the landmark one-nation, one-tax was passed, and its statements now smack of hypocrisy.
Recalling the history of Goods and Services Tax (GST) rollout, top government sources said the Congress party when it came to power at the Centre in 2004 had the economy in the “pink of health” but it still could not convince the states to come together for GST as their leaders lacked “statesmanship”.
“The Congress party is now desperate to take credit for our pro-poor, pro-middle class, and pro-MSME plan to slash tax rates and slabs. This is typical of Congress which has an approach of being obstructionist and is against the common man,” the source said.
A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced sweeping GST reforms that will lead to cut in prices of common use items, the Congress on Saturday demanded an official discussion paper on GST 2.0 soon for a wider debate and said it has been demanding radical transformation of the GST regime for the last two-and-half years.
“If the Congress now starts lecturing us on GST reforms, it will only show its hypocrisy. Whenever we bring about a fundamental reform, the Congress party wants to obstruct it,” the source said, adding the Congress did not intend to come out with GST and only when the Modi government showed statesmanship and brought states together, Congress called it ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’.
The Congress party had boycotted the programme organised in the intervening night of June 30-July 1, 2017 organised at the Central Hall of Parliament to mark GST rollout. It had also staged a walk out of the Lok Sabha when the GST law was getting passed.
“I wonder if the Congress party has the moral authority to talk about GST,” the source said, adding that finance ministers from Congress ruled states are part of the GST Council and they are party to every decision taken by the Council.
It said a transformed GST 2.0 was a key pledge in the Congress manifesto for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and that the prime minister seems to have finally woken up to the fact that economic growth will simply not accelerate unless this transformation takes place and increases private consumption and private investment.