• 26 Sep 2022 07:14 PM
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Congress obstructed Manmohan Singh from implementing GST: Health minister

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Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya recently praised former Prime Minister Manmohan's acumen in economics and said that Dr Singh always backed the idea of Goods and Services Tax (GST), but was obstructed by the Congress party from implementing it.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya recently praised former Prime Minister Manmohan's acumen in economics and said that Dr Singh always backed the idea of Goods and Services Tax (GST), but was obstructed by the Congress party from implementing it.

Further taking a dig at the Congress party, Madaviya added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government works differently, it puts the nation first and the party later.

Delivering an honorary lecture on "Modi@20:Dreams meet Delivery" at the Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University in Ahmedabad, the union health minister said in the 1990s, when Narsimha Rao was the prime minister and Manmohan Singh the finance minister, Singh suggested the policy of "one nation, one tax".

"Regardless of political ideology, one cannot deny that Manmohan Singh was among the world's renowned economists… he had said that there should be 'One Nation One Tax' as India's finance minister. And later, Manmohan Singh became the prime minister," said Mandaviya.

He said Dr Singh could not implement GST for 10 years because "In 12 countries in the world 'one nation one tax' was implemented and business persons were unsatisfied owing to teething problems faced by any new large-scale policy. In such countries, the incumbent governments did not come to power the next time...".

Mandaviya added, "Even if Manmohan Singh thought of implementing it, his party said to think of something else or we won't form a government the second time. Modiji said 'country first', whether the government comes to power or not (a second time)… but GST has to be implemented for 'one nation, one tax', and he brought it. The country has to be first without compromises".

Further, hailing PM Modi for working "holistically" towards the betterment of all, Mandaviya said, "I went to Uzbekistan two years ago. It broke off from (then) Russia (Soviet Union)… Russia was a communist country. The Communist culture believes that communism is the only culture, no other culture exists and such a belief led to its fall...".

Modi@20:Dreams meet Delivery was released this year on Ambedkar Jayanti which includes authorship of Infosys Foundation chairperson Sudha Murty, economist Arvind Panagariya, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, spiritual guru Sadhguru and others, has a compilation of chapters talking about Modi as the head of a government for 20 years.

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