Clearing GST Council voting harder for govt as BJP loses grip over states

The party, which controls 15 states, falls short of the 75% vote share needed to pass a decision. And it doesn't have an Arun Jaitley to broker a consensus on contentious matters

The GST Council never ever had to resort to voting to decide an issue before its December 2019 meeting. In fact, the provision for voting under GST law was more a matter of an academic interest prior to that meeting.

The controversial issue of the GST rate on lotteries was decided by voting when the Council met on December 18 last year. Most of the votes were in favour of a uniform tax rate of 28 per cent on both state and private lotteries, with effect from March 1, 2020. The  move was a partial defeat for the proposal by