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As PM Narendra Modi linked the rollout of the revised GST structure to the start of the Navratri festival Monday and said the start of “GST Bachat Utsav” (savings festival), along with the income tax relief announced earlier, will bring happiness in the form of increased savings, the Opposition Sunday accused the PM of taking “undue credit” for the latest GST reforms, which they called “inadequate”.
Reacting to the PM’s 19-minute address to the nation, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said in a post in Hindi on X, “Narendra Modi ji, instead of the simple and efficient GST of the Congress party, your government imposed the ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’ by collecting 9 different slabs and collected over Rs 55 lakh crore in eight years. Now you are talking about a Rs 2.5 lakh crore ‘savings festival’ and applying a simple band-aid after inflicting deep wounds on the public!”
“The public will never forget that you collected the highest GST on their dal-chawal-grain, pencils, books, treatment, farmers’ tractors — everything,” said the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha.
The Congress’s communication in-charge Jairam Ramesh said that Modi addressed the nation to “claim sole ownership of the amendments made to the GST regime by the GST Council, a constitutional body”. In a post on X, he said the Congress has long argued that the GST has been a “Growth Suppressing Tax”, “plagued with a high number of tax brackets, punitive tax rates for items of mass consumption, large-scale evasion and misclassification, costly compliance burdens, and an inverted duty structure (lower tax on output as compared to inputs)”.
Ramesh called the current GST reforms inadequate, with outstanding issues, including the widespread concerns of MSMEs, the major employment generators in the economy. “Apart from major procedural changes, this involves further increasing the thresholds that apply to interstate supplies,” he said.
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee alleged that the Centre was taking “undue credit” for lowering GST rates. Without naming PM Modi, Banerjee said, “We are losing Rs 20,000 crore as revenue, but we are happy about the lowering of GST. But why are you (Modi) claiming credit? We had sought a lower GST. It was our suggestion at the GST Council meeting with the Union Finance Minister (Nirmala Sitharaman).”
TMC deputy leader in Rajya Sabha Sagarika Ghose said that the PM did not mention “that after mass suffering, stagnant incomes and job losses for the last five years, the Modi government has belatedly awakened to the need to reform GST… In 2016, Modi promised that ‘Notebandi’ will end black money. It didn’t happen. Then, in 2017 Modi promised GST 1.0 will end ‘tax terrorism’ and that didn’t happen. And instead a highly complicated GST structure led to GST Inspector Raj”.
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On the PM’s pitch to “buy Swadeshi”, she said, “But will the PM end his fascination for foreign branded products?”
CPI MP P Sandosh Kumar said: “After almost two decades, the PM had to concede that the GST was in a way a failure. Another fact is that he used a jumla in his speech today, which was that 99% of products will face 5% GST. This is not factually correct. Moreover, why are economic policies being linked to Navratri? This is Hindutva ideology. In the wake of Bihar elections, this is a face-changing tactic.”
AAP MP Sanjay Singh said, “In the last 8 years, crores of rupees have been taken from the people of the country in the name of taxes. Why was the burden of taxes imposed on the people of the country for 8 years?”
