Rather, who succeeds Sushil Modi, credited for taking forward the talks on GST, faces the tough task of taking on board all states and ironing out differences with the Centre. He has been a regular at the meetings of the empowered committee.
His name was proposed by Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit (who also holds the finance portfolio for Delhi). Dikshit's choice was unanimously backed by other state finance ministers, as well as Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
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"We will try to achieve consensus on the Constitutional Amendment Bill and the GST law as soon as possible," Rather told reporters after his selection.
The post had fallen vacant last month, after Sushil Modi resigned as Bihar deputy chief minister, following a split in the Bharatiya Janata Party-Janata Dal (United) alliance in the state. While Modi was a clear choice after Asim Dasgupta resigned as chairman of the committee in 2011, following his defeat in the West Bengal Assembly polls, this time it wasn't easy to predict who would lead the panel.
Both the empowered committee and the Centre prefer a candidate who is unbiased, has technical understanding of issues, comes from a large state and is acceptable to most states. As the Centre also sought someone who was open towards the idea of GST, a senior National Conference leader fit well into its scheme of things.
Conventionally, the post has always been held by members of political parties other than the Congress.
After the meeting state finance ministers, Chidambaram told reporters the Centre and the states were progressing with the implementation of GST. He added the Centre was awaiting the opinion of the law ministry on whether to introduce changes in the Constitutional Amendment Bill or to withdraw it and introduce a new one, in line with the recommendations of the parliamentary standing committee on finance, which had finalised its report last week.