Congress to boycott GST session, as will JD (U) and most other Oppn parties

Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s political assessment prevailed over economist Manmohan Singh as the Congress on Thursday said it will boycott the special midnight session of parliament on June 30 to mark the rolling out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

The Congress said it would stay away not just because this was an imperfect GST, but also given the atmosphere in the country when joblessness is increasing, farmers are being killed in police firing and Muslims being lynched.

According to sources, after obtaining views of her key aides, Sonia had taken the political decision to boycott the special session on Tuesday itself but did not announce it as she wanted everyone, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former finance minister P Chidambaram, to come around to her views. Most of Wednesday, therefore, was spent weighing pros and cons of not attending the GST session.

As former prime minister, Singh had received an invite from the government to share the dais with the PM. The PM would launch GST in the central hall of Parliament in the presence of President Pranab Mukherjee. Others on the dais will be Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Vice President Hamid Ansari and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda. The Janata Dal (Secular) has said it will attend the function, while most other Opposition parties have indicated they would stay away.

Sources said the Congress was divided over the issue and a final call on whether the party line would be binding on a former prime minister or not and should the grand old party be seen opposing an economic reform it had initiated years ago.

On Thursday, Sonia drove to Singh’s residence to firm up the party’s official position. Hours later, former union ministers Anand Sharma and Jairam Ramesh were fielded by Sonia along with veterans Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mallikarjuna Kharge, party leaders in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha respectively, to announce that the Congress will not attend the special GST session.

Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said Congress “sooner or later” will not only repent opting out of a “team India event” but “sooner or later pay a heavy price” for its decision. He said Congress is “suffering from serious crisis of mind and men going by the way they are refusing to become a part of the emerging transformative narrative of India.”

With its stand of boycotting the GST midnight rollout event, the Congress has again attempted to provide leadership in the Opposition space and indicated its intent to fight its political battle against Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls on issues that impact the poor and the middle classes.

According to sources, the decision was also conveyed to some other political parties, with Ahmed Patel, political secretary to the Congress president, having phoned Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

The Janata Dal (United), which had dented Opposition unity by announcing its support to the National Democratic Alliance presidential candidate, said its members will also boycott the session. On Wednesday, Trinamool Congress had announced its boycott since GST was being “hurriedly” implemented. The Left parties have asked their Members of Parliament to stay away from the function.

After the Congress decision, Nationalist Congress Party sources said it would rethink its decision to attend. Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam are also unlikely to attend the function where top industrialists and Hindi film industry stars have been invited to attend. All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam members are also set to skip the event. There have been widespread protests by textile sector entrepreneurs against GST in Tamil Nadu.

In the afternoon, Congress’ Azad listed the official reasons for the party’s stand. Firstly, midnightsessions of Parliament have been held only thrice in the past in 1947, 1972 and 1997 to mark India’s independence and its 25th and 50th anniversaries. To launch a tax law in the same fashion by the BJP would undermine the country’s freedom struggle, he said. Secondly, the GST in its present form is far from a perfect law and did not deserve the hype around it being created by the Modi government, said Azad.

The Congress is miffed that while Modi as former chief minister of Gujarat was vociferously opposed to GST and wrecked its rollout when the previous UPA government tried to push it, he is now marketing the tax law as a historic event.

“From 2003 to 2013, GST stood for goods and services tax. Tomorrow it would mean grand self-promotion tamasha,” Ramesh quipped.

Anand Sharma, who held the commerce portfolio earlier, said there were several flaws in the present GST and the government did not incorporate the Congress views despite concerns expressed by its members during parliamentary debates.

The Congress has also taken offence at what it views as Modi trying to appropriate the legacy of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who addressed the nation at midnight in a special parliament session when the country became free on August 15, 1947.

Kharge said the previous UPA introduced entitlement-based laws related to employment guarantee, right to information, food and education but never made a show of these, unlike Modi who was selling a half-baked tax law.