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Congress rebuffs govt’s GST overtures

Despite the NDA-government’s overtures to the Opposition on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill, the Congress rebuffed the move, saying that the government was using only “optics” and was not serious in implementing the Bill. Even though Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu called on Congress president Sonia Gandhi at her residence on Thursday morning and said the government was willing to accommodate her party’s demands on GST, by the evening the Congress cold shouldered the offer.

This is the second major outreach of the government to the top Congress leadership on the GST bill after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met Sonia and his predecessor Manmohan Singh over tea at his 7 RCR residence on November 27.

After a 20-minute long meeting with Gandhi at her residence, Naidu told reporters that he met Gandhi in his capacity as the Parliamentary Affairs Minister and that he asked the Congress president to take a final stand on the two pending bills relating to GST and real estate.

Indicating no clear breakthrough on GST issue, Congress on Thursday dismissed as “all optics”, as Naidu’s meeting with Gandhi to seek her support for its passage and alleged that the “obduracy” of the BJP on the issue continues. “What proposal? There is no proposal from the government side. If he had to accept our demands why would Arun Jaitley say that shrinking Congress strength in Rajya Sabha will make GST happen,” Congress spokesperson Kapil Sibal said when asked whether the government has accepted the demands of Congress and sent any proposal to Sonia Gandhi through Naidu on Thursday.
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