CAIT rebuffs congress president's election promise to abolish GST

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Mar 25, 2019

The Confederation of All India Traders has criticised Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s election promise to abolish the goods and services tax and argue that he has no feasible alternative to offer.

As elections draw near, a point of discussion has been the GST, the tax that replaced the previous value added tax system in July 2017. Although the tax cased difficulties across Indian retail with many jewellery brands and textile manufacturers experiencing difficulty adjusting, CAIT spoke up against Gandhi’s statement that he would abolish it.

CAIT’s secretary general, Praveen Khandelwal, said that Gandhi has no blueprint for an alternative tax system should he be voted into power, the Press Trust of India reported. Khandelwal also said that Gandhi is making traders a scapegoat in his campaign, something CAIT is strongly against. 

Khandelwal asked Gandhi and his party to share its plans for traders and said that, should traders be exploited, face political consequences in the future. Khandelwal stated that, when the Congress Party was last in power, traders were not a priority and seven crore traders across India have converted into a vote bank following a CAIT campaign. 

The organisation plans to soon release a National Charter of Traders. This will set out traders’ core issues and suggest a road map. CAIT will then deem which political party best fits its goals and then all traders will vote for that party as one unit.