Political Exchange: BJP and Congress debate PM Modi's 'ambitious' $5 trillion economy target

Reacting to the Prime Minister's speech in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi said the Prime Minister did not speak about unemployment which he described as the biggest problem facing the country. He also claimed that the Prime Minister is distracting the country from real issues by solely attacking the opposition.

Speaking about the issues on GST, Gopal Krishna Agarwal, spokesperson of BJP said, “The issue about GST has been very clearly clarified by the finance minister in the budget that when there was a backlog of funds to be transferred to the state, excess collection through cess and GST was transferred to the consolidated fund of India. The finance minister has said that that excess fund will be withdrawn from the consolidated fund and two months pending transfer to the states will be taken care of out of that fund.”

“For the future, the finance minister has said that the compensation cess will have to be met, any devolution to the state under the GST for an increment of 14 percent every year will have to be met through this compensation cess which will be levied on GST. So, the clarity on the GST devolution to the state 14 percent increment every year for five years has been clarified. I think that should sufficiently settle the issue,” he added.

Sanjay Jha, spokesperson of Congress said, “This government is very dodgy on data. So, it is very difficult to have a conversation with them on policymaking. Even today, on the fiscal deficit, which has gone up by 0.5 percent, a substantial hike in the numbers, we all know that actually that number must be significantly more because the government has actually been window-dressing or airbrushing the numbers by financing them through NHAI or through the FCI."

Speaking about doubling farm income by 2022, Agarwal said, “Under aspirational India, 16 new initiatives for the rural and agriculture economy has been clearly announced. Whether it is UDAN, railways, warehousing, PPP model, all those initiatives will create liquidity in the agriculture sector and also help in generating more income for the agriculture sector, infuse liquidity and create demand.”