On Tuesday, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel slammed the Centre for allegedly keeping members of Congress-ruled states out of the GST Council’s group of ministers (GoM) tasked with exempting tax on essential goods related to the coronavirus.
The GST Council has formed an eight-member panel of ministers for tax exemption on essential goods related to Corona, according to the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister’s Office (CMO). The panel will not include any members from Congress-ruled states.
“It is unfortunate not to include any members of Congress-ruled states and is against the spirit of “cooperative federalism,” he said.
The Congress party has been demanding GST exemption on vaccines, medicines, and other devices for several days in order to effectively combat the Covid pandemic at all levels.
Ministers from Congress-ruled states also proposed lowering the GST rate to 0.1 percent instead of the current rate of 5% at a meeting of the GST Council.
When the GST Council failed to reach a consensus, the chairman appointed an eight-member committee to investigate the matter.
Mr Baghel claimed that not a single minister from a state run by the Congress has been appointed to the committee “deliberately” to ensure that this demand is ignored.
Members of the Congress party, including Sonia Gandhi, have repeatedly raised this issue, and Mr Baghel brought it up in his video conference with Prime Minister Modi, urging him to exempt goods related to Covid-19 from GST.
