Gujarat Chief Secretary J N Singh on Sunday said last year’s Assembly elections in Gujarat were “responsible to some extent” in the GST Council bringing changes in the tax slabs. (Representational Image)
Gujarat Chief Secretary J N Singh on Sunday said last year’s Assembly elections in Gujarat were “responsible to some extent” in the GST Council bringing changes in the tax slabs.
Speaking at an event to celebrate one year of GST, he said: “The GST Council has shown tremendous flexibility while implementing GST by bringing in a lot of changes in the tax structure… To some extent, Gujarat elections were also responsible (for this)… This was an election where people could see problems. The problems occur, but many times we cannot see them because many times government and political decision-makers are not much in contact with the day-to-day things happening at different places. But (during Gujarat elections), they (political decision-makers) could see what is happening in Ahmedabad, what is happening in Surat… and they were genuine problems.”
In the run-up to the polls, the GST Council shifted 178 items of daily use from the top 28 per cent tax bracket to 18 per cent.