Mangaluru, Jul 3: Congress leader U T Khader on Sunday came down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government for resorting to “political gimmicks” and keeping the public under illusion for past three years.
“The NDA government at the center seldom thinks of the welfare of the people of the country. For the past three years, it has kept the public in an illusion. The poor and the middle class have hardly benefitted from any of the Center’s policies”, Mr Khader said in a press meet here.
Mr Khader questioned the need for a mid night session of the parliament for the launch of GST, which was earlier proposed by the UPA government and vehemently rejected by BJP leaders including Mr Modi. “The previous UPA government has brought in several historic legislations. It introduced the landmark Right to Information Act, Right to Education, National Food Security Act and NREGA. The historic economic reforms of the 90s happened due to the efforts of Manmohan Singh,” he said.
He also said that GST is just a uniform tax and not ‘one nation, one tax’ as projected by the BJP.
“It was UPA’s finance minister P Chidambaram who proposed GST in 2006-07 union budget. However, BJP opposed its implementation,” he said adding that Congress always supports progressive steps and therefore it did not oppose the implementation of GST now.
Mr Khader also said that the present government launched GST in a half-baked way as it is now applicable only for indirect taxes. He also criticized the government for failing to make it comprehensive and bring excise, petrol etc too under its ambit.
He said that the central government is answerable to the public as the poor people of the country are going to be the ones who will be most affected because of its policies. “If they make policies for the welfare of all in the country, we also will promote them,” he said.
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