KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the GST imbroglio, urging him not to belie the trust between the Centre and the states.
Referring to the Attorney Generals apparent opinion that it is not the Centre’s responsibility to compensate states for GST shortfall in the pandemic situation, she said, this appears to be an onslaught on the democratic and federal structure of the country and an act of subterfuge to undermine the trust reposed by the states in the spirit of cooperative federalism.
“I am deeply anguished by the GST imbroglio which tantamount to a betrayal of the trust and moral responsibility of the Government of India towards the states, violating the very premise of Federalism,’’ she added.
“May I remind you that, not only you, as Chief Minister of Gujarat, opposed the implementation of GST on various grounds, but late Shri Arun Jaitley also unambiguously and publicly stated, in December 2013, that the sole reason why BJP was opposing the GST implementation is because BJP did not trust the then Government of India….Today, his words are ringing in our ears as we are losing trust on the BJP government in the Centre,” she wrote.