LS clears GST bill, now over to the states

The Bill was passed after an intervention by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who sounded a conciliatory note and urged opposition benches to stand with the government in the historic moment when “tax terrorism” was going to end.

“Even in the best of democracies, sometimes it’s difficult to pass finance Bills. But today, we pass this in one voice, we pass this together. It is our democracy and maturity of political leaders in India that we have been able to do this,” said the Prime Minister towards the end of his 42-minute address in the lower house, which was heard in rapt attention barring a brief jarring note struck by Congress MP from West Bengal Adhir Chowdhary.

In a departure from his usual style of taking potshots at the Opposition benches, Modi’s address all through maintained the tenor of humility ending on a congratulatory note for Lok Sabha saying, “I congratulate the House for coming together to pass the Bill. We will move forward step by step.”

Punctuated with wisecracks, witty repartees and his trademark acronym interpretations, the Prime Minister said, “GST stands for Great Steps by Team India, Great Step towards Transformation, Great Steps towards Transparency.” He went on to add, “One of the biggest messages of GST is that the consumer is king. There were 7-11 taxes everyone had to process, now that comes to an end. Consumers and small businesses will gain tremendously. Small business will feel more secure with this. Small business is our strength.”

Dispelling fears of  state governments on a weakening of their position, the Prime Minister said, “A trust between the Centre and States has developed. This was not about a parliamentary majority. This is about consensus.” He added, “The GST Bill will make the federal structure of the country stronger.”  The Prime Minister acknowledged that manufacturing states will suffer losses but said they will be compensated. “All the necessary provisions have been included to ensure that the States are benefitted or compensated as per need,” he assured.

However, in the midst of conciliatory note, he did not forget to counter Congress leader M Veerappa Moily’s contention that the NDA government had consulted only Rajya Sabha leaders on the matter and treated Lok Sabha as a “junior partner”. “Such description was uncalled for,” said Prime Minister Modi referring to consulting both Sonia Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh, one a Lok Sabha and other a Rajya Sabha member. The Prime Minister also countered the Opposition criticism that GST Bill would adversely affect the poor. He said that it would rather lead to the empowerment of the poor.

After the day-long deliberation, the Bill was finally put to vote at around 7.40 pm. However, this was preceded by a walkout by the AIADMK members after its leader P Venugopal said that they were not satisfied with the clarifications given by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The Bill was finally passed with the support of all the 443 members present and voting.

The Bill was initially passed by Lok Sabha on May 6, 2015, and transmitted to Rajya Sabha for concurrence. Rajya Sabha passed the Bill with amendments at its sitting held on August 3, 2016, and returned it to Lok Sabha. It would now go to the states and the new tax regime can be implemented only 16 states ratify the Bill.