When you’re threatened of losing your power, you castigate even the beneficiary policies, that’ll actually help you. But when you’re assured of remaining in power, the game changes. Thankfully, the game has changed, and a lot for the Bharatiya Janata Party, currently in power in the Central Government. The Goods & Services Tax Bill popularly known as the GST bill, which is currently held to ransom in the Rajya Sabha by the Congress party, has now found unlikely support in the Bengal stalwart, Mamata Banerjee.
Propelled by her successful return to the West Bengal government, Mamata Banerjee, has decided to support the NDA in the GST Bill, currently pending to be passed by the Rajya Sabha. In her own words, “We have ideological differences with BJP but we will always support on issues that are beneficial to the people. We will support GST Bill,” she reported at a press conference after her win in the 2016 Legislative Assembly Elections, where Trinamool Congress has occupied 211 of the 295 seats. Thus, Mamata Banerjee has now no qualms in supporting BJP for the GST bill.
For beginners, GST bill is for the Goods & Services Tax, which shall replace all the extra taxes, with one uniform rate of tax that shall apply throughout India. Interestingly, the main party blocking the bill’s progress, i.e. Congress, is actually the brain behind it. Even though the bill has been passed in the Lok Sabha, in order for the bill to become an Act, it needs to be passed by both the houses, and ratified by the President. That is where the sinister game of the Congress comes into the picture.
Since GST means abolition of various taxes, therefore chances of exorbitant pricing are diminished, which will be to the disadvantage of the Congress, who in the name of development, are notorious for sucking the blood of the middle class. Besides, after the failure of their alleged ‘Intolerance’ campaign against the NDA government, the party is desperate to gain ground, even if it is at the cost of the nation’s interests. The hue and cry over the National Herald case, where the high command of the Congress Party, i.e. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, were summoned to the court, was just another trick to divert the people’s attention, causing a loss of Rs. 9 lakh crore per year to the Indian exchequer. (That’s the estimate by the Comptroller & Auditor General of India)
But it seems, that the Congress party forgot the age old adage, ‘You can fool some people all the time, you can fool all the people for some time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.’ Eventually, the dirty game of the Congress was unraveled, bit by bit, by the exposures of C&AG and the maverick BJP MP, Subramanian Swamy. The Augusta Westland Scam only boosted the call for NDA further.
Cut to May 2016. NDA won Assam with an overwhelmingly majority, and has managed to strike its presence in Kerala and West Bengal. What NDA did not expect, was the unexpected wave of support for the GST bill as well.
Now that both are back in power, Tamil Nadu CM Jayaram Jayalalithaa and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee have changed the game by supporting the cause of GST Bill. Call it whatever you want, but the support that they are, has actually isolated Congress for good, and how, here it is.
As per the statistics, as of now, NDA has 65 seats in the Rajya Sabha, and UPA has 70. Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK and Trinamool Congress have 12 seats each in the same House. If AIADMK and TMC, as they have said, are supporting the GST Bill, that makes the power to 89, prevailing over the Congress hands down. The Independents and nominated are already in support of the same, which clearly pummels Congress face down.
As we await the Monsoon Session, the situation is clear: unless and until the TMC and AIADMK backtrack on their promises, NDA, led by BJP is clearly on a roll. If they manage to make it, India shall be propelled further into economic progress, with GST contributing an estimate of around 1-2% to the country’s GDP. Given how the Congress and the scion of intellectual terrorists are feeling right now, this clearly reminds me of the famous dialogue from Sholay, a bit edited for the readers: TERA KYA HOGA, CONGRESS? (What will happen of you, Congress?)