The NDA floor management is in full swing to ensure that the goods and services tax (GST) Bill is passed by the Rajya Sabha (RS) in the Monsoon session itself after enjoying the select committee’s majority support. Congress, AIADMK and the left parties have expressed their reservations on different provisions of the GST Bill. In the 245 member Rajya Sabha, it requires two-third members to support the bill and that is not going to be an easy task for the ruling combination.
“The passage of the GST Bill in the Upper House will require 50% of the members to be present and two-third of them voting in favour,” said a source on anonymity, adding that, “Congress may finally not issue a whip to its members to vote against it as the party would not like to be seen as scuttling the tax reform and AIADMK also is expected to agree to a solution which takes care of their revenue concerns in the final Bill”.
The Bill has already been approved by the Lok Sabha and now it has to be taken up for passage in the Rajya Sabha.
“Administratively, we are taking steps to ensure that both the Centre and the States will be able to meet the rollout target date of April 1, 2016. Efforts would be made to have a reasonable rate of GST so that the experience is a successful one for the whole country,” Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das said.
“We are hopeful that the Congress will reconsider its irresponsible stand on the GST. It is hardly a dissent note on the Bill, it is a dissent against the Congress’s own proposals. Congress MPs are giving a dissent against the suggestions made by their own Chief Ministers,” Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told after the report was tabled.
“Accepting the Congress’s demand for reducing the Centre’s representation to one-fourth opens up the possibility of the States always overruling the Centre and it would cease to have a say on the GST,” a top government source said.
The committee has rejected the Opposition’s demand for lowering the Centre’s say in the GST Council. It recommended that the representation in this decision-making body has to be retained at the proposed level of one-third of the total for the Centre and two-thirds for the States.
By Premji
