‘Shiv Bhakt’ Rahul Gandhi vows to roll back GST

Bhopal: AICC president Rahul Gandhi, who has been projected as “Shiv Bhakt” by his party in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, on Monday vowed to abolish Goods and Services Tax (GST) if the Congress returned to power at the Centre in the 2019 parliamentary elections.

Mr Gandhi, while attacking demonetisation and GST, said the two radical measures undertaken by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre had caused immense hardships and miseries particularly for the small and medium level businessmen in the country.

“GST will be abolished if the Congress returns to power in the 2019 parliamentary elections,” he said while addressing party men here.

“We will protect small and medium businesses,” he added. Also, slamming the demonetisation move, Mr Gandhi said the move had caused great inconvenience to the people.

He also came down heavily on the Centre for its failure to arrest growing incidents of violence and sexual harassment agai-nst women in the country.

“A BJP MLA in UP raped a woman. PM was silent. We will establish dedicated police stations for women. We will deal with the accused in crimes against women with strong hands,” he said.

He also attacked the Centre for its failure to check price rise of essential commodities as well as fuel.

Mr Gandhi announced that farm loans would be waived if his party returned to power at the Centre. He made it clear that only the die-hard Congress men, not the party hoppers, would be given Congress tickets in the polls. He also took a jibe at MP CM Shivraj Singh Chou-han for going on announ-cement spree of sops, saying, “Sachin Tendulkar is known as run machine. Similarly, Mr Chouhan has earned the sobriquet of ‘Ghosana’ (announcement) machine”.

The chief minister has so far made more than 21,000 various announcements without bothering to solve the growing unemployment problem in MP, he said.

Earlier, Mr Gandhi staged a roadshow here travelling 12 km in an open bus to reach from airport here to the BHEL ground, where he addressed partymen. Hoardings dotted the roadshow route hailing him as a “Shiv Bhakt”.