After requesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withhold the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam replacing Indian Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and the Indian Evidence Act in that order, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has now urged the Centre to withdraw Goods and Services Tax (GST) from life insurance and medical insurance premiums as it pushes up rate of premiums affecting people’s ability to take care of their basic needs.
“Our demand to Government of India is to roll back GST from life insurance and medical insurance premium on grounds of people’s health imperatives. This GST is bad because it adversely affects the people’s ability to take care of their basic vital needs,” Banerjee has written on the X, threatening to launch a protest movement if her demands were not met.
“If Government of India does not roll back the anti-people GST, we will be bound to hit the road,” Banerjee said.
The Chief Minister’s statement on GST is seen as a “fine and subtle move” to create a schism in the BJP particularly after Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, in his letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman raised the issue on behalf of Nagpur Division LIC Employees Union which had submitted to him a memorandum to this effect.
Gadkari said, “Levying GST on life insurance premiums amounts to levying tax on the uncertainties of life. The Union feels that the person who covers the risk of life’s uncertainties to give protection to the family should not be levied tax on the premiums to purchase cover against this risk.”
Referring to the support Banerjee drew from Samajwadi Party Shiv Sena and others, Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh said, “it is high time the BJP Government understood that they should refrain from political, social and financial dictatorship otherwise the people will show them their right place … Mamata Banerjee has done the right thing by raising the issue as this blind government will never understand that its GST policy is hurting the people … particularly in the area of their basic needs.”