GST is 'Gabbar Singh Tax', noteban ruined economy:Rahul Gandhi

In a scathing attack on the BJP-led Union government over the GST, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today described it as the "Gabbar Singh Tax" and called for changes in the new tax regime to make it simple.
Stating that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in its present form was not what the Congress party had conceived, Gandhi said the Narendra Modi dispensation went ahead with it despite his party warning the government about the adverse impact.
The Congress leader attacked Prime Minister Modi over the sudden demonetisation of high-value currency in November last year, saying the decision ruined the country's economy.

"Their GST is not GST. GST means Gabbar Singh Tax. This is causing a loss to the country. Small shopkeepers are finished. Lakhs of youths have been unemployed. But they are still not ready to listen," Gandhi said in his address at a rally of the Thakor community here.
According to him, the Congress' GST was a simple tax regime with a cap not exceeding 18 per cent, but the BJP-led government did everything opposite to what the Congress had said.
"We have told them, and continue to tell them, that this GST will have to be changed, to be made simple. This has to be done or the country will face a big loss. This is the truth of the country," he said.

"GST is the idea of the Congress party. We first brought it. There was a thinking behind GST, that there should be one tax in the entire country. And that tax shall be in 18 per cent cap and least number of forms have to be filled. But Arun Jaitley ji and Modi ji said 'no, we will not listen to the Congress party'," he said.

"'If (Congress) said it shall be simple, we shall not make it simple. If you said tax cap shall be 18 per cent, then it shall not be capped at 18 per cent. If you said there shall be one tax, then we will make it five'," he said, referring to the stand of the government.

Gandhi said the Congress party had warned the government about the adverse impact of the GST in its present form, but the government decided to go against their suggestions.
Against the Congress's suggestions conveyed to the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Modi through party leader P Chidambaram, the government went on to impose a "very different" GST, he said.
He also said that his party had asked the government not to be in a haste in its implementation. "But the government refused to listen," he said.
Gandhi also attacked Modi over demonetisation saying that it has acted as another "axe" that hit the country adversely.

"Don't know what happened. On November 8, Modi ji says that 'these Rs 500, Rs 1,000 notes, I did not like it, so from 12 at night, I am going to scrap it'. He hit the axe, and for the first 2-3 days he could not understand what happened," he said adding that Modi realised his mistake 5-6 days later.
"Narendra Modi ji ruined the economy of the entire country," Gandhi said.