Congress is committed to reconceptualise the GST regime if the party will be voted to power at the Centre, party leader Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday while interacting with industry representatives in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. 

While assuring that the Congress party will usher in a “One tax, minimum tax,” Gandhi said that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has crippled the Medium Small and Micro Enterprises. The Congress leader started his campaign in the state ahead of Tamil Nadu Assembly elections and said there is a need to promote MSMEs in order to compete with other nations, such as China and Bangladesh, reports PTI.

“In my mind the future of India and any competition we want to win with China, Bangladesh or others is through the MSMEs,” Gandhi said, adding that the small and medium industry was the backbone of job creation

Alleging that India is unable to provide jobs and the nation’s economy has been devastated, the Congress leader blamed the central government, saying, “You cannot have disharmony and have economic growth.”

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Gandhi hit out at Narendra Modi-led BJP government for bypassing a bulk of negotiations, which happened during the UPA government for a simple, minimum tax. He said that the BJP government, eventually, “superimposed” its own model deviating from the originally conceptualised framework of the tax, which in result made people pay ‘five’ (in reference to slabs) massive amount of taxed and face huge complications, reports PTI. 

Gandhi said the Congress Party and the United Progressive Alliance are committed to reconceptualise and reconstruct GST for a “one tax and minimum tax.”

“When we come to power in Delhi we will restructure the GST and give you one tax, minimum tax,” the Congress leader said.

The government cannot tie the hands of industries with ‘GST and demonetisation’ and ask them to compete with China’ without empowering MSMEe and giving them access to credit, he said.

Gandhi added, “Without unclogging the banking system, without giving the MSMEs protection and incentives for job creation, the Indian economic sytem will not move forward.”