Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Monday fired a broadside at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over Goods and Services Tax (GST), demonetisation, and failure to create jobs. While addressing poll rallies at Paonta Sahib, Chamba and Nagrota in the poll-bound Himachal Pradesh, he questioned the PM on the benefits of the “painful exercise of demonetisation and the hasty implementation of the GST. He blamed the PM for “squeezing employment opportunities” in the country and asked “where are the two crore annual jobs, promised by the BJP in 2014IJ”.
Responding to the claims of BJP leaders that the tax was passed with Congress support, he said that GST that has been implemented by the Modi Government was not what was proposed by his party.
“The Government implemented the GST in haste with the highest tax slab of 28 per cent and a very complicated procedure of filing returns which has ruined businesses. We will completely change the GST after coming to power in 2019 to mitigate the sufferings of the people hit by it,” said Rahul.
He said the agitation planned by the Congress on the first anniversary of demonetisation on November 8 was aimed at highlighting the plight of small businesses, youth, women and farmers, who had suffered the most. Taking on Modi over his allegations of widespread corruption in Himachal, Rahul Gandhi said that as per a NITI Aayog report, corruption level was lowest in Himachal and it was also adjudged the best in the country in education, health and cleanliness.
Comparing the data for Himachal and Gujarat, he claimed that the hill State was ahead on all parameters be it health, education, employment or any other sector. The Congress vice-president accused Modi of speaking selectively on issues related to corruption and alleged “he never spoke about the Vyapam scam, lalit Modi scam or any other scam surfacing in BJP ruled states and has skipped mention of Jai Shah, or his crorepati business friends”.