Mamata’s boycott of GST launch poor tactic

The Trinamool Congress decision to boycott the special midnight session of Parliament to roll out the Goods and Service Tax (GST) is in keeping with its non-cooperative attitude towards practically everything that the Narendra Modi government does. Calling it “another epic blunder of the Centre” TC supremo Mamata Banerjee said in a statement on Wednesday that repeated suggestions to take some more time to properly implement GST had fallen on deaf ears. The very fact that across all states except Jammu and Kashmir, the tax measure has been adopted is enough to debunk her argument that it needed to be delayed. There has to be a limit to prevarication. An important legislative measure could not be allowed to hang fire indefinitely. That the opposition forced a close scrutiny of all clauses of the GST bill before they were passed was good. But having done that, there was no reason to wait further.

It indeed remains to be seen what stand the Congress and other opposition parties take. It is quite possible that they too would decide to boycott the special session but such a move would only anger people at large who are fed up of the opposition’s obstructionist tactics. Some opposition leaders are now saying that the letter of invitation by parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar was sent to the MPs individually whereas the norm is to address it to party leaders only. This is hardly a credible reason to stay away. The Congress is in a dilemma because its leaders are taking credit for GST since it was the erstwhile UPA government’s brainchild. Boycott of the rollout would make it seem as though they are not in agreement with the measure. It is debatable, however, whether there was any need to call a midnight session and thereby resort to avoidable dramatics.