Congress brought suggestion on GST rate cap much later: Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday hit out at the Congress, saying the 18 per cent cap on Goods and Services Tax (GST) was suggested by the party when the bill was passed in the Lok Sabha and later tabled in the Rajya Sabha.

"The concept of cap on GST was a subsequent development. The cap was not discussed in 2006 and in the successive years. Even when the Congress left in 2014, nowhere was the cap suggestion made.

"The suggestion on cap was adopted by Congress after 2015, when the bill went to the Rajya Sabha," he said during the debate on the bill in the Lok Sabha.

Earlier, Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi by saying that he had opposed the bill when he was Gujarat Chief Minister, calling it "retrogade in nature".

"We were the creators of GST. We were the first to bring GST. We support it. Those who are passing the GST now, why were opposing it, when they were in the opposition," asked Kharge.

"Had they agreed to our conditions on GST earlier, the delay wouldn't have happened. We were never against GST. We always wanted to pass it. It is wrong to say that we blocked the GST bill," he added.

--IANS

sid/vd/dg