GST passed: I'm half satisfied, says Congress's Chidambaram

NEW DELHI: Even as Twitter erupted with felicitations to the nation on the historic passage of the GST Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha , Congress leadership was still doubtful the bill will be introduced as a money bill as it wants.

India's former Congress finance minister P Chidambaram also sounded a bit morose after the bill passed. This is what he told ANI.

A money bill requires both Houses of Parliament to be passed.A finance bill cannot constitutionally be rejected by the Rajya Sabha. Naturally, the Congress wants it this way, because at 60 members, it has the most of any party in the Rajya Sabha. In the Lok Sabha, the Congress doesn't - the BJP there has a huge majority.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was happy , of course, even though Sibal said he should have been present in the Rajya Sabha.

"It would have been good had the Prime Minister, who was keen on the bill, been present in the house," Sibal told reporters outside Parliament House after the bill was passed by the upper house, IANS reported.
As was industrialist Anand Mahindra. He tweeted:

Late Wednesday evening, the Rajya Sabha passed the Bill which the Lok Sabha had already approved last year. The exact rate of the tax will only be decided in the weeks or months ahead. A little before 10 pm the Rajya Sabha was adjourned until 11 pm, so everyone could eat dinner.
Former Chief Election Commissioner of India lauded the long 5+ hours' debate.

Confederation of Indian Industry Director General Chandrajit Banerjee described how the bill will help make the country a national market.
"GST is expected to remove the cascading effects of various multi-level indirect taxes on goods and services and will subsume most of the country's central and state level duties and taxes, thus making the country a national market," Banerjee said.
Chartered Accountant MR Venkatesh said the passage of the GST bill is cause for celebration. He tweeted:

Pointing to how long the GST Bill Amendment has been in the making, a writer for the Economist tweeted:

With inputs from Agencies