Bhopal:

The Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly on Wednesday unanimously passed the Madhya Pradesh Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill-2017 as both treasury and opposition benches tried to claim credit for the new tax regime.

Ruling BJP and Opposition Congress, both adopted the Bill in House paving the way for roll out of GST.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was present in the House when finance minister Jayant Malaiya moved the MP Goods and Service Bill, 2017 at the day-long special session on Wednesday.

Earlier, both BJP and Congress tried to position GST as their own victory.

"The present version of GST Bill is the translation of the bill proposed by UPA government. It was Manmohan Singh who opened up Indian economy that led to in economic reforms in the country," senior Congress MLA Mukesh Nayak said.

Another Congress member Mahendra Singh Kalukheda said that opposition of GST by the BJP during the UPA regime in country resulted in a huge loss of about Rs 10 lakh crore every year. "Now, ruling BJP is adopting all schemes of UPA government including GST, Aadhaar, MNREGA," he added.

Leader of Opposition, Ajay Singh said that CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan opposed GST continuously since 2006.

"MP Chief Minister opposed GST continuously since 2006 and even said that this (GST) would ruin the country. Chouhan even said that he would move the supreme court on this," he added.

On the other hand, BJP’s national general secretary and MLA, Kailash Vijayvargiya gave credit of the GST approval in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "PM studied the reasons behind the poverty and found that taxation format was the biggest reason behind this problem. So, he pitched for the GST to implement - one nation one tax formula," he added.

He recalled that idea of GST germinated during the earlier NDA regime headed by Atal Bihari Vajapayee. Finance Minister Jayant Malaiya said that the GST taxation system was in place in 160 countries across the world.

He said that GST will bring in transparency and unified taxation system. "GST Bill is prepared after a hard work of 17-years. A help-centre would also be set up and our officials are ready for the implementation. All the decisions in this regard would be taken by the GST Council, which included representatives of 21 states," he added

 04 May 2017, 12:56 PM