Reacting sharply over the government’s failure to clear the picture over the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the state, the state congress chief, G A Mir Monday coined a new term for the GST saying that GST it seems is ‘Government Saving Tax’.

He said that the government is putting every effort to save their chair and are befooling people over GST.

Earlier, the congress party held Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting at G A Mir’s residence here at Humhama, which was attended by senior party leaders including Tariq Hammed Karra, Nawang Ringzin Jora, G M Saroori, Vikar Rasool, Usman Majeed and others.   

Following the CLP meeting, Mir addressed media persons in the lawns of his Humhama residence and said that all the evil designs of the incumbent government over the implementation of GST will be sabotaged.

“We won’t allow the government to infringe the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. The party has decided to fight against such evil moves, which are bound to infringe the JK’s special status,” he added.

He also said that the steps so far taken by the present government suggest that the government is trying to implement the law here but there will be strong opposition from the congress party with an aim to safeguard the state’s special status.

He also said that at a time when the bill over GST was passed in the parliament, the present coalition government’s Member of Parliament (MPs) failed to utter a single word over it and now the leaders are coming in the forefront to secure the special status of the state.

 “The MPs should have raised their voice much earlier so that the special status of JK could have been secured. At present, the government is in fix and have no way to come out from the situation that has been generated due to the central GST. To save their power by implementing the law here, the government is trying to befool people,” he said, adding that such actions of the government are unacceptable.   

Lashing out at the government for disallowing the media persons to cover the special assembly session, slated to be held from Tuesday, the state congress chief said banning media inside the assembly seems that something fishy is cooking between the two coalition partners. “Media is the pillar of democracy and the government should not disallow media persons to cover the proceedings,” he added. 

“We (Congress) were also planning to implement GST across the country but the party was ready to take decision about implementing the law according to JK’s constitution here,” he said, adding that earlier the incumbent government were also planning to take any decision according to JK constitution. But “I don’t know what prompted them to take such decision during the last nine months.”

“I believe that the two coalition partners are not on the same page over the GST implementation as they have so far failed to come up with the concrete agenda in this regard,” he added, adding that the congress party has alerted the government in this regard.

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