In a scathing attack on the Congress party, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday that Sonia and Rahul were unable to accept the fact that anyone apart from the Gandhi family can rule India.
“They have taken the 2014 defeat badly. The two top leaders of the Congress are unable to accept that anyone outside the Gandhi family can run the country,” he said.
Addressing the press, after introducing the GST Bill in Rajya Sabha, Jaitley also accused the Congress of trying to stall the development of the country.
He maintained that the GDP would be boosted if GST was introduced. “But Congress for some reason does not want that,” Jaitley said.
The Congress-commissioned chaos in the Rajya Sabha meant that the House was adjourned seconds after the government introduced the GST proposal, which creates a national sales tax to replace a matrix of levies in the 29 different states.
The GST Bill has already been cleared by the Lok Sabha, where the government has a huge majority. But in the Rajya Sabha, it is heavily reliant on the support of the opposition. As the bill was introduced there, Congress members stormed into the well shouting “This won’t do.”
There are just two days left in this session of Parliament. Failure to pass the GST Bill now will make it hard for the government to meet a self-imposed 2016 deadline for implementing it. After it is sanctioned by Parliament, half of India’s states need to endorse the reform, a process that is likely to be lengthy.
Supporters say the GST will add up to two percentage points to economic growth, boost manufacturing and ease of business, and ensure cheaper and more efficient products for consumers.
The GST Bill was originally written by the Congress, whose coalition government was defeated by the BJP last year.
The Congress, hemmed into just 44 Lok Sabha MPs, has said it will not allow Parliament to function unless the PM removes senior BJP leaders it accuses of graft, including Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj. The Congress also wants changes to the bill, which it says must be more “simple and comprehensive”.
