Jaitley fears winter session washout

Venkaiah Naidu willing to meet Rahul to ensure GST passage

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday put on record what most already suspect — the winter session of Parliament, just like the preceding monsoon session, is threatened with a washout and unlikely to pass the goods and services tax (GST) Bill.

Both Jaitley and Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu criticised the Congress for “inventing some excuse or another” to disrupt the Rajya Sabha. On Monday, Congress members disrupted the Upper House and staged a walkout from the Lok Sabha to protest alleged atrocities on Dalit youths in Punjab under the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party government and the non-inclusion of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy to an event in Kerala where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief guest. Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi also alleged that he was denied entry into a temple in Congress-ruled Assam at the behest of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.   

But Naidu said he was still hopeful that public opinion would prevail and the House would run. Naidu and Jaitley met Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Jyotiraditya Scindia over lunch to discuss the Congress support to the GST Bill.

Government sources said the ministers apprised the Congress leaders about their position to the three Congress demands on the current draft of the GST Constitution amendment Bill, while the Congress leadership said it would put forth its position in the next meeting.

Later in the day, Jaitley, in an interview to NDTV, said the “writing’s on the wall” that Congress will not let the GST pass in the ongoing session. On the Congress’ three demands on GST, Jaitley said neither of his two predecessors, Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram, proposed a constitutional cap on the interest rate. “It is clearly an afterthought,” he said. He also said the one per cent transit tax wasn’t part of his original proposal, and manufacturing states needed to be persuaded on the issue.

The finance minister denied there was any “vendetta” against Chidambaram’s son Karti. Jaitley, however, said the material with the income tax authorities was “significant and substantial” and “those being inquired have a hell of a lot to answer”. He also lashed out at the Congress president’s statement that she was Indira Gandhi’s daughter-in-law. Jaitley said her remark “reeked of political entitlement”, and also accused Rahul Gandhi of being a “crybaby” for his complaint that he was denied entry to a temple in Assam. On the National Herald issue, the finance minister said the Congress was “morally not in a happy situation” and “on sticky ground”.

In his latest blogpost, Jaitley reminded the Congress of the words of Jawaharlal Nehru on the last day of the first Lok Sabha on March 28, 1957. Nehru, in his address, had reminded MPs of the huge responsibility bestowed upon them to decide the destiny of their fellow-countrymen and being involved in the processes of making history. He said, “Those who claim the legacy (of Nehru) must ask themselves the question: What kind of history are they making?”