Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who is abroad on a holiday for the past fortnight, on Friday dubbed the GST implementation as a "tamasha" and said the tax reform measure was being rushed through in a "half-baked" manner and as a "self-promotional spectacle".
Rahul hit out at the Government accusing it of being "insensitive" even as his senior party colleague Anand Sharma slammed the BJP-led NDA Government for holding the GST roll out function in Parliament's Central Hall, terming it as an "insult" to its prestige and a "publicity" tool. Sharma asserted the party will not participate in the launch.
The party like other opposition members including Trinamool Congress and left are boycotting the event on grounds that proper groundwork has not been done and a taxation reform could not be equated to midnight celebrations of Indian Independence the Central Hall witnessed on August 15, 1947, and later on the silver jubilee of freedom in 1972 and the golden jubilee in 1997. Congress also took exception over the invite for the event which stated PM Narenda Modi will launch GST in the presence of President Pranab Mukherjee.
Rahul said the Government was rolling out the GST without planning, foresight and institutional readiness, as it did during demonetisation. "A reform that holds great potential is being rushed through in a half-baked way with a self-promotional spectacle #GSTTamasha (sic)," he said on Twitter.
"Unlike demonetisation, GST is a reform that @INCIndia has championed & backed from the beginning...But like demonetisation, GST is being executed by an incompetent & insensitive Govt w/o planning foresight &institutional readiness #GSTTamasha (sic)," he said in a series of tweets.
Hours before the roll out of the new indirect tax regime, Sharma said, "If they had conducted it outside the Central Hall, invited us with respect, we would have gone." He said the reason behind the Congress boycotting the GST launch event was "ideological" and not political in nature.
Asserting that the Congress supports the Goods and Services Tax, Sharma said the party wants a trial run to be carried out initially to gauge the issues faced by businesses. The former Minister of Commerce Congress questioned why petroleum, alcohol, real estate and electricity were being kept out of GST.
Asked about the JD(U) participating in the GST launch, Sharma said every political party has a right to have its own views and that parties that understand which events should be organised in the Central Hall of Parliament are not going. Sharma refused to comment on reports about Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's growing closeness with the BJP.