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| BJP appeasing ally or blissfully ignorant over issue …? | | PDP showing no urgency on ratifying GST bill, BJP chooses silence | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 15: Over a month on, as the Parliament has finally passed the Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill, Jammu and Kashmir has yet to give a thought to it, leave alone considering modalities as to its applicability in the state, thanks to ruling PDP which is treading the issue cautiously, and a far less concerned BJP which has kept it out of priorities list, not to speak of exerting pressure on its ally for urgency on its benefits.
PDP Minister spoke in two rythms over GST in two months, one while he was speaking in Legislative Council in June this year when he expressed willingness to join the GST regime which he contended at time would greatly benefit the state. Since J&K is a state that consumes more and produces less, he asserted that it is going to benefit the state, but at the same time the government shall have to protect its constitutional position.
However, PDP Minister changed this affirmative and positive tone and tenor soon only next month, that is in July during the meeting of empowered committee meeting in New Delhi in which all the Finance ministers participated along with Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. In this meeting The PDP Minister put forth the riders on pretext of special status of J&K, sources said adding that he later set the record straight on the goods and services tax (GST), saying the empowered committee has agreed that the proposed tax will not be extended to the state in the current form.
The Minister put forth it firmly that the state government will come out with a separate proposal on how to participate in the GST framework without compromising its constitutional position on taxing services, sources said PDP restricted on its earlier stand and willingness more due its fear of reaction from rival and opposition National Conference, ex Finance Minister AR Rather already having cautioned the government on its direct applicability in the state. It was argued by National Conference leader and former Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather on some forums that J&K needs to take a well-thought out and considered position on the matter, sources further said adding that this is why PDP is silent over the matter.
However, the eyebrows are being raised by the stakeholders in Jammu over BJP's silence over the matter as it has neither raised the issue on any forum nor asked its partner PDP to show urgency over discussing the matter and if need be, evolving a broad-based political consensus on how to position itself on the application of this law to the state, sources said. These stakeholders in Jammu who think the state is going to get greatly benefited by the GST bill are contending BJP should exert pressure on PDP to take up the matter as early as possible. But neither senior ministers like Deputy Chief Minister nor any legislator have raised it yet, giving an impression they are either blissfully ignorant or not interested in following the policies NDA is pursuing at Centre. |
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