FM Arun Jaitley ducks last minute googly from P Chidambaram

NEW DELHI:The Rajya Sabha passed the crucial constitutional amendment Bill preparing the ground for the goods and services tax ( GST) on Wednesday virtually unanimously amid walk out from the AIADMK, which rules Tamil Nadu, which claimed that the bill violates federal structure of the Constitution.

But, before passage Finance Minister Arun Jaitley cleverly ducked a last minute surprise thrown from former Finance Minister P Chidambaram on behalf of Congress for the subsequent legislations – Central GST and Inter-state GST.
“We will fully comply with the Constitution. There is no intention (on part of the Government) to bypass the constitution,” was Jaitley’s stock reply to Congress’ demand that Government “must” assure that it will not get the subsequent GST legislations through the parliament as a ‘money bill’ where Rajya Sabha would not have veto to hold up the Bill.

“This is far too transformative, far too revolutionary a legislation that one House will vote and the other House will speak … Both the Houses must be allowed to vote and this is something within the power of the Government to say, 'yes, we will introduce the CGST Bill and the IGST Bill as Financial Bills and both the Houses will debate, both the Houses will vote',” Chidambaram demanded on behalf of the Congress while extending support to the Constitution Amendment Bill to pave for the subsequent GST legislations.

Also read: GST impact across sectors: Take a look at the winners and losers

Top government sources indicated that this was a surprise demand raised by the Congress which had not crept during the back channel negotiations government had held to cajole Congress for its support to the legislation. While government has yet not made up its mind about the nature of subsequent legislations, it feared that this may be another tactics from the Congress to extract a veto on subsequent legislations as the grand old party still commands numerical superiority over the BJP in the Rajya Sabha.

While replying to the debate, Jaitley termed Chidambaram’s demand as “unreasonable” and reasoned out that Finance Ministers of Congress ruled states will be consulted under the Empowered Group of State Finance Ministers working on the subsequent legislations.

Notwithstanding, the last minute surprise thrown by the Congress, the effect of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s hectic parleys to cajole Congress and other parties to support the legislation in last couple of weeks was visible during the debate on the legislation in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

While Finance Minister expressed that the government was “grateful” to all political parties for the “large consensus” arrived ahead of the discussion on the legislation, P Chidambaram welcomed the “friendly and conciliatory tone” of Finance Minister.
“There has been a large consensus building which has taken place, which was absolutely necessary in a Bill of this kind, for the simple reason that a legislation of this kind cannot be based on partisan considerations,” Jaitley said introducing the Bill for passage in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. “I welcome the friendly and conciliatory tone of the hon. Finance Minister’s speech. I think, the tone and approach has changed over the last three or four weeks, and that augurs well for this Bill,” was how Chidambaram responded while starting the debate on the bill today.