NC, Congress give a miss to all-party meeting on GST

Srinagar, Jun 24 () The all-party consultative group, constituted by the Jammu and Kashmir government to evolve consensus over the implementation of the GST in the state, met here today, but the main opposition parties – the National Conference (NC) and the Congress boycotted the meet. The NC and Congress said they refrained from the meetingas the government failed to circulate draft proposal.The consultative group met here this afternoon under the chairmanship of former deputy chief minister and Member of Parliament, Muzaffar Hussain Beigh, an official spokesman said. The invitation for the meeting was extended to the members by the Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu. He said the members of the group include Abdul Rahim Rather from the NC, M Y Tarigami from the CPI(M), Nizam-ud-Din Bhat from the PDP, Sunil Sethi from the BJP, Aijaz Ahmad Khan from the Congress, Hakeem Muhammad Yasin of the PDF, Ghulam Hassan Mir of the DNP and independent MLAs Pawan Gupta and Sheikh Abdul Rashid. Except the representatives from the NC and the Congress,all other members of the consultative group were present atthe meeting.Minister for Law and Justice, Abdul Haq, Minister for Finance, Haseeb Drabu, Chief Secretary B B Vyas, Finance Secretary Navin Kumar Choudhary, Commissioner Commercial Taxes M I Khateeb and other senior officers of the Finance and Law Departments also attended the meeting, the spokesman said. He said at the onset, on the request of the chair, the meeting observed two-minute silence as mark of respect for DSP Mohammad Ayub Pandith who was lynched outside Jamia Masjid here on Thursday night. The meeting held threadbare discussions over the legal,legislative, financial and economic aspects of the GST regimewith the chairman explaining in detail the nuances of the newtax regime.There was a general consensus in the meeting that nonimplementation of GST regime would trigger economic andfinancial chaos in the state with the inter-state trade vis-a-vis Jammu and Kashmir taking a big hit, the spokesman said.He said the meeting, at the same time, called forallaying the apprehensions and misconceptions that have beenpassed on to the people for political expediencies.Speaking at the conclusion of the meeting, Beigh said there was unanimity in the forum on either of the three paths to be followed on GST which include taking further time to build wider political consensus, taking the matter to the legislature and allowing the state cabinet to take a call on the issue in light of the Jammu and Kashmir's special constitutional position. This is the second attempt by the government to evolveconsensus over GST implementation in the state.Earlier, an all-party meeting chaired by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was convened on the issue on June 13. Meanwhile, the Congress said the party refrained from themeeting because of the non-serious attitude of the government.The party also blamed the PDP-BJP coalition of being in astate of confusion over the GST, as a result of which, thetrade bodies in the entire state were in dilemma."The party decided to refrain from the meeting as thegovernment failed to circulate draft proposal, as was agreedearlier, to enable the parties to debate and discuss the GSTat length in order to evolve a consensus,” a party spokesmansaid.He said despite the pressing demand from the oppositionfor the draft proposal, nothing was done, which has sentconfusing signals among the entire political spectrum in thestate.The spokesman said the chief minister had agreed in theall-party meet that draft proposal would be circulated toevery political party, but, despite that, nothing was done.He said one fails to understand that on the one hand thePDP-BJP coalition is in a hurry to implement the GST, but onthe other hand, the government is not even able to circulate adraft proposal, which is indicative of double standards andill intentions on the part of the coalition.The National Conference also stayed away from the meetingfor the same reasons."The invitation for the meeting reached us at 12 pm today and then the government did not send a draft proposal to us which we could have discussed first," NC provincial president Kashmir, Nasir Aslam Wani, said. Wani said the chief minister had agreed in the all-partymeet that draft proposal would be circulated to everypolitical party, but no such thing happened."We had to discuss the draft within our party first andthen we could have send our representative to the meeting."There was no fun in sending a representative without anyinternal discussions, so we boycotted the meet,” he said. SSB MIJDIP