Rahul Gandhi: If govt agrees to our terms GST will be cleared in 15 minutes

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said that the GST Bill will be passed in Parliament in 'in just 15 minutes' with Congress support if the 'BJP' govt accepted conditions laid down by them, when he was speaking to students of NMIMS, in Mumbai in reply to a student’s question, he said that 'We don’t want a GST Bill where there is no cap on taxes. We want a limitation on the maximum tax people can be charged with'.The dispute between the ruling party and the Opposition party(Congress) is not just the demand for a constitutional cap on the GST median rate, as it is called, but also two other conditions put forward by the Congress.

The GST Bill has been approved by Lok Sabha, but is stuck in Rajya Sabha, where the BJP does not have a majority. The Congress has demanded withdrawal of an additional 1% on inter-state movement of goods, which has been proposed to provide comfort to manufacturing states that fear a loss of revenue. Congress has also demanded a dispute resolution panel headed by a Supreme Court judge. Stating that the GST legislation was conceptualised by congress for seven years, Arun Jaitley(Finance Minister) didn’t allow it to pass. Even Narendra Modi, when he was chief minister of Gujarat didn’t allow it to pass. The BJP blocked everything. It has never been the strategy of the Congress to block Parliament.

Rahul said this government doesn’t believe in a conversation, adding that a compromise on GST was possible. It is sitting on the table. But the government is not taking it. Work is yet to begin on the necessary infrastructure that can make GST work.