‘Shrinking Congress in Rajya Sabha will aid GST’

Sounding hopeful, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said the Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill will be cleared as the strength of the main Opposition party is “shrinking” in the Rajya Sabha.

Mr Jaitley also hit back at the Opposition party’s “trinity” remarks and reminded that “gods don’t vote in Parliament but MPs do”.

The Union minister also asserted that most of the states are on board for GST and it is possible to implement it even in the middle of the year.

“The Congress has said even the trinity of gods cannot make GST happen soon. Gods don’t vote in Parliament but MPs do. The shrinking strength of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha can make it happen,” Mr Jaitley said at an event here. He said the Congress would lose on numbers in the next round of bi-annual elections for the Rajya Sabha and even the number of UPA-nominated supporters in the House would come down.

Congress leader Anand Sharma had recently said the April 1, 2016 deadline for rolling out GST would not be met “even if the trinity of gods — Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh — descend on Earth” because the government was yet to complete the preparatory work for the new indirect tax regime.

The Constitution amendment bill to roll out GST is stuck in the Upper House where the ruling NDA does not have a majority of its own. The bill is being opposed by the Congress although many other Opposition parties are on board. The Congress is seeking three changes in the bill, including a constitutional cap on the GST rate, to support it.

Charging the Opposition party, Mr Jaitley said a part of obstructionism was to stop growth otherwise “there cannot be volte-face of this kind and, secondly, you cannot concoct those three reasons which never existed”.

“There is a serious ideological gap between the high command and mid-command. There seems to have an ideological gap because the mid-command in the Congress always embarrassingly implemented the direction of the high command,” said Mr Jaitley.