A day after Prime Minister Modi called Congress’ opposition to the Goods & Services Tax as a “grand stupid thought”, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram asked if he also considered his government’s chief economic advisor stupid for articulating the same viewpoint.
“If it is [a] grand stupid thought to argue for a cap of the tax rate at 18%, then CEA Arvind Subramanian and many other economists are stupid. Is that what the PM is saying?” Mr. Chidambaram asked in a series of tweets.
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The Congress leader asked if the Prime Minister had not read the CEA’s report on Revenue Neutral Rate where he had recommended a revenue neutral revenue (RNR) of 15% to 15.5%.
“Why can’t the normal GST rate be 15% and RNR plus rate on luxury goods be 18%? ‘Tax and spend’ is the credo of the BJP government. Example, when crude oil prices fell by 50%, prices of petrol and diesel remained the same,” he said.
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On Wednesday, addressing election rallies at four different places, Prime Minister Modi mocked at certain intellectuals and economists for ‘misleading’ the country.
“The Congress wants the same 18% tax on something as essential as salt and something as expensive as ₹5 crore worth car. They want 28% tax on alcohol and costly cigarettes to be reduced to 18%,” he said at a rally in Gujarat.
“Do you want to sell cheap alcohol and spread cancer by selling cheap cigarettes. This is nothing but a grand stupid thought,” Mr. Modi had said, calling the Congress’ stand as anti-poor.
Corporates’ debt
However, the Congress continued to attack the government on economic issues and asked it why it was not acting against the big corporates that reportedly have a huge pile-up of Non Performing Assets (NPAs).
“We all know that top 50 corporates owe ₹8.35 lakh crores to the banks and out of those, three top Gujarat-based companies — Reliance [Anil Ambani Group], Adani and Essar owe — ₹3 lakh crore,” said Abhishek Manu Singhvi at a press briefing.