Anurag Thakur, the Union minister of state for finance, responded to West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra’s claim that he was not allowed to speak at the end of the GST Council meeting on Saturday. Mitra claimed that when he attempted to express his displeasure with the GST Council’s decision after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced it, his “voice was muffled as the secretary brought the meeting to a close and the virtual link was cut off.”
In this regard, Mitra wrote Sitharaman a letter. “I am writing this letter with great trepidation. You mentioned several of my observations by name near the end of today’s GST Council Meeting, but despite repeated requests for my comments, I was not given the floor. Instead, you gave the floor to the minister from Uttar Pradesh, who requested that some of my comments be deleted by name, and you agreed, shockingly,” Mitra wrote.
In response, Thakur said such an incident never happened and it was “unbecoming” of a senior leader like Mitra to claim that it did. “The Finance Minister has never stifled dissent in the GST Council. It is unbecoming of a senior member of the Council to suggest tht this has happened. The GST Council embodies the collective spirit of all states towards debate in a healthy manner; it has been & shall continue,” Thakur posted on Twitter.
Thakur, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said that in his two years as a state minister, he has never seen Sitharaman cut off anyone during the GST Council meeting. “She has patiently given each and every speaker as much time as they needed, even if it meant discussions went on for long hours,” he said.
He also said that Mitra’s connectivity during the meeting was not good. “During the GST Council discussions today(June 12),it seemed as if the Finance Minister frm West Bengal did not have a stable VC connection. Revenue Secy repeatedly informed him his line was breaking, that he was not properly audible & to turn off his video fr better connectivity,” he tweeted.
