From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Dec 21: Senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday dubbed the Prime Minister Narendra Modi regime’s eight tax rates under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) system as a ‘stupid idea’.

He said filing GST returns has been a nightmare for the traders.

Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, he said if the GST Council will discuss 'Ease of filing returns' tomorrow, is that an admission that filing returns has not been easy in the last 18 months?

"The stupid idea was the BJP's idea of having eight rates when GST was first implemented in July 2017," the former Finance Minister tweeted.

The truth is filing GST returns has been a nightmare," Chidambaram said.

"When the Congress President (Rahul Gandhi) said — as I have said — GST should be a single rate, it means that the standard rate of GST should be a single rate. That's absolutely correct,’’ he said.

As (former Chief Economic Adviser) Arvind Subramanian's RNR (Revenue Neutral Rate) report pointed out, Chidambaram said when there is a standard rate there will also be a standard-minus rate and a standard-plus rate. That's elementary, not stupid.’’

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said at an event in Mumbai on Tuesday that the government was aiming to bring 99 per cent of items below the 18 per cent GST slab.

He said the Rs 60,000 crore worth Rafale deal cannot not go 'unchallenged or unexamined' after the Supreme Court expressed its limitations to examine it because of its jurisdictional limits.

He alleged the Centre deliberately misled the court and later accused it of 'misinterpreting' the note.

"The government is also giving lessons in English grammar to the court,” he said in a two-page statement.

The Congress has decided to take up deal before the people and would ask them to support its demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the deal, he said.

The former Finance Minister also questioned the decision to cancel an earlier MoU and enter into a new agreement.

The governments of India and France had entered into a MoU under which India would buy 126 Rafale twin-engine multi-role fighter aircraft, he said.

The price per aircraft discovered through an international bid opened on December 12, 2012 was Rs 526.10 crore, Chidambaram said, adding Dassault, the manufacturer, would supply 18 aircraft in fly-away condition.

The former Finance Minister said that Modi government had dome irreparable damage by taking a decision on demonetization of high value currencies and implementation of flawed GST.

The remaining 108 aircraft would be manufactured in India at the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd's (HAL) facilities in Bengaluru using Dassault technology that would be available to HAL under a Transfer of Technology agreement, he said.

"This MoU was cancelled and the prime minister announced the new deal on April 10, 2015," he added.

Chidambaram also questioned the government for its decision to buy only 36 aircraft when the need was for at least 126 aircraft. He said by all accounts, the government was purchasing the same aircraft from the same manufacturer under the same configuration.