Delayed GST bill better than flawed one: Chidambaram

Asks the government to accept three weighty objections of Congress so that the bill could be passed

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram today said he agrees with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley that a delayed GST bill is better than a flawed one, contending that the present bill is "flawed".

"Agree with FM @arunjaitley. A delayed GST is better than a flawed one. Present GST Bill is flawed," he said in a tweet, a day after Jaitley indicated at a FICCI gathering that passage of Goods and Services Bill may not be possible in the Winter session of Parliament and that a delayed bill is better than a flawed one.

Chidambaram asked the government to accept three weighty objections of Congress so that the bill could be passed.

"Congress' three weighty objections & the bill could be passed. One per cent tax is anyway dead. Scrap the provision," he said in another tweet.

The Congress has demanded that there should be a cap on the GST rate and it should be part of the Constitution Bill, which Jaitley says cannot be done.

The party has also demanded that the proposed additional one per cent tax on inter-state movement of goods should be shelved.

"Rate cap can be provided in the bill through skillful drafting. Talk to the opposition," Chidambaram said in another tweet.

On the other Congress objection that the bill should provide a mechanism for grievance redress, Chidambaram also tweeted that "No state is opposed to independent dispute resolution mechanism. Set it up."

Jaitley yesterday accused the Congress of delaying the long-pending GST due to "collateral reasons".

"As far as GST is concerned. I have no doubt in my mind that an attempt to delay it is entirely for collateral reasons. And the only collateral reason I suspect is if I couldn't do it, then why should somebody else do it?"," the Finance Minister said at the FICCI meet.