Jittery Govt Reaches out to Manmohan Singh for special GST Council Meet

Jittery Govt Reaches out to Manmohan Singh for special GST Council Meet

NEW DELHI – The NDA has reached out to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and requested his presence at the midnight meeting of the GST Council to usher in the country’s new tax regime. A formal invitation to attend the special meeting of the GST Council on June 30 was delivered to the former PM by finance minister Arun Jaitley. When contacted, Singh’s office confirmed the invite, but said the former PM has not confirmed his presence at the meeting so far. A formal invite has also been extended to former PM HD Deve Gowda.

The government’s outreach to Manmohan Singh on GST is a sharp comedown from its previous stand, when PM Narendra Modi had made his midnight announcement to demonetize 500 and 1000 rupee currency notes on November 8, 2016, without prior discussions with or indications to the opposition parties. The move had come in for sharp criticism from the opposition, and had elicited cutting response from Manmohan Singh, who referred to it as “a mammoth tragedy.” Singh, in his Rajya Sabha speech, also said, “The decision to demonetize will cause grievous injury to the honest Indian who earns wages in cash. The dishonest black money hoarder will get away with a mere rap on the knuckles.”

Attempting a smoother implementation of GST — politically also — the government is now eager to get the opposition on board and this time, seek the former PM’s support for the government’s decision.

Even as the government makes its moves, however, a section of the opposition, after locking horns with the NDA over the presidential polls, is pushing to corner the government over the GST rollout and has suggested that they should keep away from the govermment’s special GST Council session. Sources in the opposition parties indicated there is intense lobbying underway to attack the government on the alleged “hurried” implementation of the new tax regime, even if it is only a symbolic protest.

A meeting of the opposition is scheduled on the morning of June 28, when the opposition’s presidential candidate Meira Kumar files her nomination papers at 11am. In addition to making a show of solidarity for Kumar, leaders of the Congress, Left, NCP, Samajwadi Party, and RJD among others, the parties are also expected to confer with each other on whether to attend the session.

Source: TOI