Attacking Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the BJP on Wednesday alleged that his political life had been dotted with a “show of disrespect to Parliamentary procedures and tradition” and he is now adamant to bring down the Monsoon session’s productivity even as it asserted the Government is not running away from the debate in parliament
“The government is not running away from debate on price rise and Goods and Service Tax (GST) (levied on new items) and the issues can be taken up in Parliament once Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recovers from COVID-19,” said Union Minister Piyush Goyal and slammed the Congress for disrupting proceedings in the parliament.
"Congress has a destructive attitude towards democracy. It was exposed from Jairam Ramesh's tweet that Congress was successful in not allowing the House to function," Goyal, who is the Leader of House in Rajya Sabha, told newspersons outside parliament.
He alleged there was a competition among opposition parties on who would disrupt parliament most.
Responding to queries from reporters outside parliament, Goyal said that the government is not running away from debate. The minister concerned Nirmala Sitharaman is suffering from COVID-19 and once she recovers, the debate on price rise and GST can take place, he said.The Opposition is demanding the rollback of five per cent GST that has kicked in on pre-packaged and labelled food items such as cereals, pulses and flour weighing less than 25 kg. For a commodity measured in litres like curd and 'lassi, the limit is 25 litres
Goyal pointed out that the ministers of the Congress-ruled states were part of the GST council, which gave the nod for the levy. Earlier in the day, Union Minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani hit out at Rahul saying as an Amethi MP between 2004 and 2019, he never posed any question in Parliament and when he "abandoned" the constituency and became the MP of Wayanad, his attendance in Lok Sabha was less than 40 per cent in the winter session in 2019. He has also never proposed any private member's bill, she added. Irani had defeated Gandhi in Amethi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. She also took a dig at him over his frequent foreign visits and said this has become a matter of worry for his own party.