Empowered Group of State FMs meet on Monday to elect new chief

NEW DELHI: The Empowered Committee of the State Finance Ministers will meet on Monday after a gap of almost five months to elect a new chairman to replace Asim Dasgupta, who was defeated in the West Bengal Assembly elections, and look for ways to proceed with the GST.

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will preside over the meeting and among other things, try to build a consensus on the implementation of the long-pending Goods and Services Tax (GST).

This will be probably the first time that the empowered group will meet without Dasgupta, former Finance Minister of the West Bengal, who was associated with it since formation.

In the West Bengal Assembly elections in May, Dasgupta lost to TMC candidate Amit Mitra by a margin of over 26,000 votes from the Khardaha constituency.

Incidentally, Mitra -- who is now the Finance Minister in the Trinamool Congress-led government in West Bengal -- is considered as a front-runner for the post of the chairman of the Empowered Committee.

Kerala Finance Minister K M Mani is another prominent front-runner. According to reports, Mani had written to Mukherjee last month expressing interest in taking over as the chairman.

Mukherjee had earlier offered the post to Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, who however, ruled himself out.

Modi, who handles the finance portfolio, had cited preoccupation with affairs back in his home state as the reason for declining the post. But there has been speculation that his decision had more to do with BJP's opposition to the draft Bill.