Subramanian Swamy remains 'silent' on GST, cites 'loyalty to party'

NEW DELHI: A day after Rajya Sabha approved the GST Constitutional Amendment Bill, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy today said he would refrain from commenting on the merits of the legislation because of a conflict between his scholarly commitment to economics and loyalty to the party.

"Has any PT studied in the proposed GST Const Amendment what is the scope and role of GSTN?," he tweeted today.

Swamy uses PT as shortform of 'Patriotic Tweeple'. GSTN is Goods and Services Tax Network.

When one of his twitter followers asked why he has not aired his views on GST and its impact on the economy, Swamy replied, "I am silent because there is conflict between my scholarly commitment to economics and my loyalty to the party's decided issues."

"The only ways known so far to economists for increasing GDP growth rate is by higher investment and increased capital & labour productivity," he said in another tweet.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley believes the roll-out of national sales tax or GST Bill, to replace a raft of different state and local taxes with a single unified value added tax system to turn the country into world's biggest single market, will help add up to 2 per cent to the GDP growth.