West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Monday targeted the Modi government over the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, saying the Centre had failed miserably in tackling the issues related to the reform the government has dubbed as the biggest in indirect taxation.
In a series of tweets castigating the Centre for the rollout of the GST, Mamata dubbed the new all-encompassing indirect taxation regime as the ‘Great Selfish Tax’ aimed at “harassing people” and “finishing the economy”.
“Great Selfish Tax (GST) to harass the people. To take away jobs. To hurt businesses. To finish the economy. GoI totally failed to tackle #GST,” she wrote on Twitter.
The latest outburst by Mamata, who has been a vocal critic of the BJP-led government at the Centre over GST as well as the demonetisation decision, closely follows another creative interpretation of the Goods and Services Tax.
Last month, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had termed GST as the ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’ while addressing an election rally in Gandhinagar in poll-bound Gujarat.
The "faulty implementation" of the GST has led to the "destruction of small businesses and industries within the country", the Congress leader had said.
Meanwhile, Mamata also used the micro-blogging platform to highlight the opposition’s plans to protest the government’s note ban decision as it nears one year of its announcement.
On November 8, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000-rupee notes a year ago, the opposition plans to observe ‘Black Day’. The West Bengal CM, who has left no opportunity to target the Centre over this particular move, changed her Twitter profile picture to a black image to register her protest and signify 'Black Day'.
“Note ban is a disaster. On Nov 8, Black Day to protest against this scam that destroyed the economy, let us also change our Twitter DP to black,” she wrote.
This, by no means, is the TMC supremo’s first attack at the Centre over the GST and notes ban. Days before the rollout of the GST, Mamata had termed the GST an “unnecessary disaster” and another “epic blunder after the GST”.
While she stated that she was not against the tax as such, she did have issues with its “poor implementation”.
