Need to call government’s bluff on GST: Kamal Nath

NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader and former union minister Kamal Nath has questioned the political commitment and administrative preparedness of the NDA government to push the Goods and Services Tax ( GST) Bill through in Parliament.

Maintaining that the Centre, even nearly two years after assuming office, has not put in place the required infrastructure framework, including a credible IT platform, for the GST rollout, Nath said it was time to “call the government’s bluff”. He added, GST has become, for the government, “a plank for indulging in political blame game.”

“It is well known the Congress has put forward three conditions for backing the GST Bill. Of these, even the government has in principle agreed on two — on the need to scrap the proposed one per cent inter-state tax and about revamping the proposed GST council to make the dispute-settling mechanism more credible. So, the only remaining difference is about fixing a GST cap on the legislation, which the government says it can’t accept. If so, why has the government failed to come out to the Opposition with a single credible alternative suggestion to end the deadlock...,” Nath told ET. Adding, “It shows the government has lost the will to pursue the GST Bill.”