WITH THE meeting of the empowered committee of state finance ministers on GST Tuesday almost bringing the states to an agreement, with Tamil Nadu becoming the sole state to hold back on its approval, opposition Congress and CPM in Bengal sought to lay blame at the BJP’s door for the indirect tax bill still lying stuck. “The Goods and Services Tax (GST) would have long been implemented had it not been for the BJP’s opposition when it was not in power. The party has played the roles of a saint and a devil. It (the GST) was proposed during the UPA regime. We, too, had proposed the direct transfer of benefits to consumers’ accounts, which the Central government is yet to implement,” Chowdhury said. He said the Congress has suggested three amendments that can further strengthen the GST. “We have kept the interest of the manufacturing states and the producing states in mind, have proposed a mechanism to solve any dispute arising out of it and sought for the GST rate to be kept fixed,” he said. [related-post] Watch Video: What's making news His colleague and senior leader Abdul Mannan said it remains to be seen how much implementation of the GST would take place but “today’s meeting (chaired by state finance minister Amit Mitra) definitely brought out the friendship between the TMC and the BJP”. “Their friendship is for obvious reasons. It is a quid pro quo between the two parties,” he claimed. Senior CPM leader and former state finance minister Asim Dasgupta said the Centre has done a lot of talks and it now needs to act. “I as the chairman of the Empowered Committee had proposed the GST in October 2009 and it was opposed mainly by two BJP-led states - Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. We had implemented VAT and were moving towards GST. The BJP has been talking a lot about it instead of putting things in motion,” Dasgupta said. CPM MP Md Salim said it was another story of the chapter ‘jai Modi bhai and Didi bhai”. “The TMC had earlier said that it would put forth issues related to the interest of the state before it supported the GST. Now, if Tamil Nadu can put forward their queries, why can’t our government? The answer is simple. It is a pre-planned arrangement between BJP and TMC. The BJP had helped the TMC in vote transfer here and now the latter will let the GST pass easily,” Salim alleged. State BJP leader Jayprakash Majumder said that the Congress and CPM were indulging in political manoeuvring. “What they are doing is bankrupt politics. Instead of supporting the GST, which can take the country ahead, all they are saying is who would get what kind of votes. The are trying to send a message to the Muslim community here that the TMC has joined hands with the BJP in order to attract the community’s votes. But people have and will see through the trick,” he said.
