The relationship between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress has sunk to a new low. Even the effort of the Union parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu, who drove down to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s 10 Janpath residence in search of an elusive consensus on the all-important reform bill on GST, has been summarily dismissed as a ‘just optics’ by the party. Indeed, going a step further, Congress functionaries are looking on this exercise as a ‘diversionary tactic’ in the aftermath of the Pathan-kot terror attack.
Leading the Congress charge, former union minister Kapil Sibal said that the union finance minister Arun Jaitley simply does not want any understanding with the opposition on the GST. “There is no proposal from the government side. If he had to accept our demands why would Finance Minister Arun Jaitley say that shrinking Congress strength in the Rajya Sabha will make GST happen,” said Sibal at a media briefing. Pointing out that there has been no response to the Congress proposals from the government in writing, Sibal also said: “Had there been any formal assurance, the prime minister would have been the first to speak. The finance minister would have gone and said everything on his blog and started tweeting.”
Sibal dismissed the contentions that the government has offered to agree to the Congress’ demands. “This is all optics. Naidu came and met Sonia Gandhi. They have to show all this. The fact is that the BJP is not ready for any compromise with the Opposition party on the issue as RSS and Swadeshi Jagran Manch have red-flagged the reform measure,” he added. The former union minister strongly asserted that there was no question of the Congress opposing the GST reform.
