Value added opposition

In power, BJP’s desire to be a party with a difference was a well-cultivated stance. Out of power, this translates into a studied cultivation of differences for the sake of, well, differing. The irony is that in the case of its opposition to VAT, it was the BJP-led NDA government that had first promoted the idea of the tax. As an Express recently revealed, it had been hailed in the NDA manifesto; glorified by NDA’s finance ministers, chief ministers and prime minister; and expounded upon in Budget speeches.

Today, all those protestations are buried in the sands of expediency. The BJP possibly presumes that our attention spans are so narrow; our memories, so poor, that it does not really matter if it had said one thing yesterday, and its precise opposite today. But its shameful position on VAT is not just an insult to our intelligence, it is a betrayal of its own reform agenda. Instead of helping to iron out the snarls, instill confidence in the trading community and generally ease the way for the new tax, it has chosen to exacerbate the fears and screech with the disrupters. If the BJP believes this will endear it to the voter, it had better think again. More and more Indians have come to appreciate the transparency and efficacy of the measure and the BJP may once again find itself on the wrong side of history.

Yashwant Sinha, the BJP’s pointman on VAT, argues that the party opposes the new tax because it worried that prices will be affected given the fact that states like “Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu” have not passed their VAT legislations. He cleverly leaves out the five BJP states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, MP, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, who have chosen to stay out of the new VAT regime. Would it not be wiser on the part of the party to get their “loyal” state governments to fall in line and contribute towards making the system — and prices — more uniform? The Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers is at the moment in dialogue with the BJP and hopes to engage with trade and industry groups next week. The UPA government has announced that it now plans to phase out the contentious Central Sales Tax by April 2007, while bringing it down to 2 per cent by next April. Now it is for the BJP to respond and seriously display the maturity expected of a 25-year-old.