Modi government has turned GST in to Gabbar Singh Tax – Rahul Gandhi in Gujarat

Gandhinagar:

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi today again attacked Modi government on GST saying that the way it has been implemented, it has become ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’ instead of Good and Services Tax.

Addressing a rally at the Ramkatha Ground here this afternoon, Rahul said that the GST was a thought of congress. The party had visioned it as a simplified single tax regime for the whole country with a single slab and 18% limit with least paper work. ‘We had through our former finance minister Chidambaram ji requested Modi ji and Jaitley ji to not to implement it in a complex manner or else defer it for a few months but they did not listen to us. Now the tax was in five slabs, 28 % upper limit and with provision of filing three forms a month even for the small businessmen. Now the GST is no more a GST but it has become a GST like Gabbar Singh Tax. It has caused loss to the country,’ he said.

‘ I have said it earlier and am saying it again that the current GST structure would have to be changed and simplified otherwise the country would face heavy losses,’ Rahul said.

‘Modi ji has given two axe-blows to the national economy one after the other. The first one was demonetization which has destroyed the economy and the second one was GST in its complex form,’ he added.

Rahul, who was on a day long Gujarat visit to do make some caste equations in the wake of the coming assembly election in Gujarat, had started his address to the Navsarjan Gujarat Janadesh Mahasammelan with three slogans Jai Mata Ji, Jai Sardar and Jai Bhim in an attempt to woo the OBC, Patidar and Dalit community.

He had earlier put the Congress scarf (khes) on the shoulders of OBC Ekta Manch leader Alpesh Thakor formally making him join his party which has also invited PAAS leader Hardik Patel and Dalit Sena leader Jignesh Mewani to join hands with it.

Rahul said that all the communities and every person was associated with some agitation or the other. ‘It was so because in the last 22 years during the BJP rule, the government was not of the people of the state but was of five to 10 industrialists. That is why the whole Gujarat has come on roads,’ he claimed.

He also hit out at the BJP government on the issue of unemployment and said that crores of youths in Gujarat including Hardik and Jignesh could not remain calm as Modi ji had vexed them a lot.

Rahul in an indirect reference to the allegation of a former PAAS leader about ruling BJP’s offering him Rs one crore for joining party, said, ‘there was a voice in the hearts of every Gujarti which was not an ordinary voice. It can neither be suppressed nor bought, whatsoever amount of money you pay. Be it one crore, 10, 1000 crore or the whole budget of India or the money of the whole world, you can’t suppress or buy the voice of Gujarat. Now you are so afraid that you want to buy this voice. But Modi ji there is no price for it, you can’t buy it.’

Congress vice president reiterated most of his allegations which he had leveled against BJP government during his recent Gujarat visits. Raising the issue of Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah’s company, Rahul said, ‘Make in India and Startup India of Modi ji failed but Jay Shah’s company emerged in the sky like a rocket making a 16 thousand fold increase in its earnings taking it to Rs 80 crores from a meager 50 thousand in a matter of few months in 2014. Why Modi ji who said he would neither indulge in corrupt practices not let others do so (Na Khaunga Na Khane Doonga), was keeping a mum about Amit Shah’s son’s company while delivering long speeches in Gujarat. Has he started ‘Khaunga’.’

He reiterated that the BJP government which has waived the Rs 1.20 lakh crores for 10 to 15 big industrialists and given 35 thousand crores for Nano plant, did not waive the loan of farmers of Gujarat.

Desh Gujarat