Now only a miracle can salvage the GST Bill from the thicket of opportunistic politics.

Forget GST; press ahead with good governance

Source — By FPJ Bureau | Dec 16, 2015 12:18 am 

Now only a miracle can salvage the GST Bill from the thicket of opportunistic politics. Obstructionism seems to be winning over wider national interest. Admittedly, divisive politics is an integral part of all democratic systems but rival politicians are not expected to scupper progress at the altar of intense and unthinking partisanship. Tragically, what we have seen in the last few weeks is the unreconstructed childishness and pique elevated to the status of a considered policy by Rahul Gandhi. The de facto boss of the opposition Congress is just not ready to offer constructive cooperation to the ruling party even on matters of wider national interest. It is lost on him that the GST was proposed by the UPA. It is lost on him too that the government has virtually accepted the three conditions his party had raised for cooperating in passing the historic tax reform. In retrospect, it appears that the three conditions were laid in the belief that the government would stand firm and would not yield on any of them. But the government called the Congress bluff, more or less giving in on the points raised by the main Opposition. Taken by surprise by the extent to which the government was willing to ensure that the GST Bill was passed in the current session, the Congress per force resorted to other peripheral issues to stall Parliament. As was seen in the last couple of days, after it realised that it was counter-productive to stall Parliament on the National Herald court case against the Gandhis and a few others, a new excuse was cited each day to create shindy in Parliament. It was only the tenacity and firmness of the Lok Sabha Speaker, Sumitra Mahajan, and the fact that the government had a clear majority in the House, which has enabled it to function near-normal. In the Rajya Sabha, the so-called House of the Elders with such wise men like former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as its members, it has been bedlam from the word go. The presiding officers seem helpless before the Congress members who come determined to disrupt the proceedings. In this backdrop, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s fears that this session too might turn out to be a complete washout are not unfounded. Frankly, we have a feeling that so long as Rahul Gandhi is not made to realise by someone wiser than him that his antics might result in further marginalisation of the Congress he might persist with his obstructive, destructive politics. The claim that he was prevented by the RSS to enter a famous temple in Assam was found to be false, with the head priest saying that they were waiting for the great man at the temple gate for nearly four hours but he never showed up.

But it is for the PM to find ways around Rahul’s obstructionism. If the numbers minus the Congress still not add for the GST constitutional amendment, Modi should proceed without the GST with other doable reforms. Necessity being the mother of invention, the government must be run and run well for the larger public good with or without further constitutional amendments and even new laws. Implementing the existing laws firmly and honestly too can prove productive. And reforms, wherever possible, with executive action must be proceeded with. The nation cannot be allowed to be held hostage by the immaturity and childishness of one person. The opportunity to grow at a faster rate is now. The world oil prices are at a historic low, so are commodities, giving India a golden opportunity to grow at a faster rate, particularly when China is hit by excessive capacities and shrinking exports. Happily, even the manufacturing sector is beginning to show an upward movement. Should the government become the effective catalyst for private sector growth, which it is always expected to,  there is no reason why we cannot register eight-nine percent growth this year, especially when the public sector infrastructure projects have once again got going.