Rahul invokes Gabbar again to attack Centre

NEWDELHI: Stepping up the attack against the BJP government over Goods and Services Tax (GST), Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday took the Gabbar Singh analogy further by referencing the Bollywood villain’s dialogue to say it was a tax that coveted people’s earnings.

Gandhi, who had on Monday described the goods and services tax as “Gabbar Singh Tax” during a rally in Gujarat, recalled a much quoted dialogue from the film Sholay on Tuesday to sharpen his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Congress GST = Genuine Simple Tax. Modi ji’s GST = Gabbar Singh Tax = yeh kamaai mujhe de de (give me the income),” Gandhi said on microblogging site Twitter.

Gabbar Singh was the name of the dacoit in the Ramesh Sippydirected 1975 Bollywood blockbuster. The character, played by late actor Amjad Khan, says at one point of time in the film, “Ye haath mujhe de de Thakur (another character in the movie)”.

Gandhi had targeted the Centre over the issue during a rally in Gandhinagar and called for changes in the new tax regime to make it simple.

“Their GST is not GST. GST means Gabbar Singh Tax. This is causing a loss to the country. Small shopkeepers are finished. Lakhs of youths have been unemployed. But they are still not ready to listen,” he had said.

The Congress vice-president had also stated that the Modi dispensation went ahead with its version of the GST despite the Congress warning the government about the tax regime’s “adverse impact”.