Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday condemned the unprecedented instance of muzzling the voice of Bengal Finance minister Amit Mitra in the 44th GST Council meet by turning off his microphone, restricting him from putting forward the state's demand for a tax cut on Covid items.
"They are still imposing GST on Covid items. They had turned the mike off when our Finance minister Amit Mitra wanted to place his views against it. Don't you (BJP-led Centre) feel ashamed of not allowing one to speak in a democracy?" Banerjee said while addressing the media at Nabanna.
Earlier in the day, Mitra held a one-and-a-half-hour long Press conference explaining in detail by citing examples that how the GST Council has turned 'majoritarian' and decisions were no longer taken on the basis of a consensus as it always used to be in the federal institution with representation from all states.
Citing a series of instances of GST Council meetings with Arun Jaitley as the Union Finance minister, Mitra said hour-long discussions accommodating views of all states had taken place to reach a consensus. It has been noticed in the 44th GST Council meeting that even the recommendations of imposing 0.1 percent GST on Covid items by BJP-run states turned insignificant. BJP Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Modi, who was a senior member of the GST Council for many years and was the Chairman of the Empowered Committee of the state Finance ministers, also recommended "a 0.1 percent GST as a solution – cutting across the party lines". But it also fell on deaf ears, Mitra said.
"There is a paradigm shift. The place of consensus (GST Council) is now acting with an authoritarian and majoritarian approach," he said.
Mitra demanded a probe to ascertain the exact reason behind the disconnection of the virtual link of the 44th GST Council meeting when he was raising objections. "My microphone was muted. Please investigate and let me know why it was muted at a critical time when I wanted to put across my dissent? I am giving the benefit of doubt," Mitra said. He had written a letter of dissent on Saturday itself after failing to address the floor.
"It is unimaginable that they are taxing GST on vaccines, ambulances, oxygen concentrators and crematorium furnaces. The GST loss would have been of a negligible amount if they have zero-rated Covid items as GST is charged on thousands of items. This comes when 3.76 lakh people — including 2 lakh in between January 16 in 2021 and May 1 in 2021 — died due to Covid. If they can bring an ordinance for farm laws, then why not zero-rate Covid items?" he said.
He also expressed his shock as the GST Council was just informed about the amendments brought with the help of the GIC committee of officers.
He once again mentioned that more than Rs 63,000 crore of GST compensation is due to the states for the 10-month period from April 2020 to January 2021 and it includes Rs 4,911 crore for Bengal for the financial year 2020-21.