Congress decides to boycott midnight Parliament Session on GST rollout

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad.

New Delhi: After Trinamool Congress (TMC), Left and DMK, Congress on Thursday decided to boycott the special sitting of Parliament tonight to rollout the Goods and Services Tax (GST) where President Pranab Mukherjee will also be present along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Our party will not participate in tomorrow’s event on GST,” former Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said at a press conference on Thursday evening. Azad said the Central Hall should not be used for such midnight functions. The leaders said the government was seeking to gain publicity for itself by holding a midnight function for GST roll out. Azad said three midnight functions held in the Central Hall - in 1947, 1972 and 1997 - were all related to Independence. "Probably for BJP, the years 1947, 1972 and 1997 are not important as they did not take part in the freedom struggle," Azad said. The decision to boycott came after Congress President Sonia Gandhi met former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh along with other leaders on Thursday.

The Congress, which had pushed for a GST when it was in power, has spoken to other Opposition parties, which may follow suit.

Azad said that GST was not in favour of small businesses He said farmers suffering across the country and there are attacks on the minorities about which the government wasn't concerned. He said 10 crore jobs as promised by the BJP ahead of Lok Sabha polls were not provided. The GST, billed as the biggest tax reform since Independence, will replace about 20 federal and state taxes and turn India into a single market. But many feel that business and trade is not prepared for the massive switch. The Trinamool Congress, headed by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has already announced that its members of will boycott the event. Mamata feels the GST, to be launched on July 1, is being implemented in a hurry and will hurt small businesses. Some Congress leaders had said the party should be present at the event, since GST had been its idea although it was the Bharatiya Janata Party that got it translated into a law. Others said the GST is being implemented in a hurry and could hurt small traders and businessmen, so the party should stay away. Sources said the Congress was apparently irked with Prime Minister Narendra Modi trying to emulate India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's midnight “tryst with destiny” speech on the eve of Independence. The event is to take place in the circular Central Hall of Parliament. A gong will be sounded at midnight. The Left leaders may skip the event, along with some other opposition parties. Sitaram Yechury, the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has already questioned the government on “hurrying” into introducing GST and recalled that the BJP had opposed the system when it was in the opposition.