Indore:- Appealing the Congress to shed its “ego”, Union Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today said that the opposition should facilitate passage of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill in the national interest.
“National interest should be above the political ego. I appeal to Congress that it should give up the ego so that GST bill gets cleared in the Parliament,” he said here.
After losing the general elections, Congress was putting up impractical conditions on GST and some of these conditions, if accepted, would infringe on the states’ rights, he said.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had said in Mumbai two days ago that if the NDA government accepted its three conditions, the GST bill can be passed quickly.
Prasad, however, said the Congress had not yet come to terms with its defeat in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, or it perhaps believed it would never come to power again.
The senior BJP leader said that one should wait for the Supreme Court’s decision on Ram temple at Ayodhya, but a large section of the society is of the view that the issue should be sorted out through consensus.
On the call drop issue, Prasad pointed out that the private telecom companies set up 25,000 towers in the last three months following the government’s tough stand. The state-run BSNL had put up many towers to improve its network in the last two years.
On NDA government’s stand on the net neutrality, Prasad said there were different views on it world-over, and before taking a policy decision the government was waiting for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s report.
Alleging that the law and order situation in Bihar was worrisome, Prasad said the Nitish Kumar government should crack down on criminals and a message that this government was finding itself overwhelmed by the criminals should not go out.
PTI
