EC announces bypolls to 6 Rajya Sabha seats in 4 states
The bypolls to six seats in the Upper House in four states were necessitated following the resignation of the members.
The state finance minister Amit Mitra today slammed the Union finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman for the fall in GDP even before the Covid19 pandemic and criticised her for stating that it was an ‘Act of God’.
Mr Mitra during the Press Conference said,” in the name of Act of God huge debts are being thrust upon the states”. He sees this as a well planned strategy of the Centre to ruin federalism and move towards Centralism.
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He said what the Centre is trying to do is to thrust debts on the states and ruin it financially. Mr Mitra said,” our state is not accepting the Centre’s directives that state can borrow loan.”
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He said before demonitisation our national GDP was 8 percent but after demonitisation, the national GDP came down to 4 per cent that is Rs 6 lakh crore annually. He also said that before this’ Act of God’, an ‘Act of Fraud’ had taken place and the fraud in GST to the tune of Rs 70.80 crore has already created the environment.,Mr Mitra asked,” whether demonitisation and launching of unprepared GST are also Acts of God?”
He also questioned the intent and implementation of GST. Mr Mitra referred to the meeting of the Empowered Committee in 2016 where different state finance ministers were present.
Mr Arun Jaitley who was at that time in Opposition stated,” I do not trust the UPA government so for implementation of GST”.
Now it has become the full circle and the states are saying that we do not trust the Centre added Mr Mitra. It was decided by the EmpoweredCommittee that theParliament shall compensate for the period of five years. “Now it has become the full circle and the states as saying that we do not trust the Centre,”” he said.He said,” if the states borrow loan it will adversely affect its financial heath.'”
Mr Mitra sad that Reserve Bank of India too prefers that Centre should borrow money because it can print the money if required.
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