Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday assured the Centre that following the agreement of their three demands, the Goods and Services Tax Bill will be passed in fifteen minutes.
Interacting with the management students of Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies in Mumbai, Rahul lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party for blocking the landmark for seven years during the United Progressive Alliance regime.
He assured the Centre that following the agreement of their three demands, the GST Bill will be passed in 15 minutes.
Rahul lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party for blocking the landmark for seven years during the UPA regime.
"The congress party actually brought the GST to the table. It was a conceptualised and designed by us, by (former prime minister) Manmohan Singh ji and our economic team. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who wants the GST to happen, did not allow it to be passed for seven years.
Manmohan had umpteen conversations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was the chief minister of Gujarat but he did not allow the bill to be passed," Rahul said.
Talking about the demands by the Congress regarding the bill, he asserted that the most important issue was that there should be no cap on taxes and demanded a limitation on the maximum tax that can be charged on the people.
"We don't want the taxes that are imposed on you to fly into the sky. That is the single biggest difference between us and the BJP. There are two other differences...one is the idea of dispute resolution. We are saying that the dispute resolution mechanism must be fair and must be neutral, otherwise it will cause problem in implementation," Rahul said.
Adding that their third demand was not a big issue, he said that the demands by the Congress were not unreasonable and assured that they day their terms were accepted, the GST Bill will be passed in 15 minutes.
"If BJP actually wants to implement GST then they can agree to out points, but they are not doing it. We are the people who brought it, we know the GST will benefit the country and we want it to happen. But it's a deeper problem than that. GST requires a huge infrastructure. It required complex negotiation between states and the work on that has not even begun," Rahul said.
he also told students that setting rigid boundaries and getting trapped in narrow definitions can never bring about change.
"Change is not as easy as it looks. If you want to lead institutions, if you want problems to be solved, don't set rigid boundaries for yourself, don't get trapped in narrow definitions. You need to understand that everything is connected in this world," he said.
"When I was younger and sitting where you are, I use to think that lots of things need to be changed and change is relatively easy. Now, with experience, I know that change is not easy," he added.
Gandhi added that the nation's power has always come from the strength of ideas.
"Don't be swayed by waves, use your own mind. Don't put labels on things and industries. Labels are human invention, not the Universe's," he added.
