GST Is 'Great Selfish Tax', Says Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata: After Rahul Gandhi's Gabbar Singh Tax, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today said GST stands for the "Great Selfish Tax," offering social media another trending hashtag and the Narendra Modi government at the Centre criticism over its handling of the economy.

"Great Selfish Tax (GST) to harass the people. To take away jobs. To hurt businesses. To finish the economy. GoI totally failed to tackle #GST (sic)," tweeted Ms Banerjee, who accused the BJP-led Centre of faulty implementation of the new national tax.

In other tweets this morning, the Bengal chief minister said last year's notes ban was "a disaster" and urged social media users to protest by changing their profile pictures to black on Wednesday, November 8, the first anniversary of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's sudden announcement banning high value notes.

"#Noteban is a disaster. On #Nov8BlackDay to protest against this scam that destroyed the economy, let us also change our Twitter DP to black," Ms Banerjee tweeted.

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The Trinamool Congress is among the opposition parties who have announced that they will observe November 8 as a "black day" to protest against demonetisation. The Congress too has announced protests across the country on Wednesday.
 The government will counter the opposition by observing the day as "anti-black money day" in celebration of its war against corruption and untaxed money. "After demonetisation, the nation is changing, becoming more honest and after GST the nation will move forward. The Opposition does not understand one thing that today's nation wants to become honest, give taxes, digital payment is increasing. Some people have problems as they are happy with black money," said union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today.

The Congress and other opposition parties have attributed an economic lull that saw growth plunge to a three-year low of 5.7 per cent in the June quarter to demonetisation, which yanked nearly 86 per cent of the currency in circulation at the time, and GST or Goods and Services Tax, which was introduced in July with confusing rates, complicated filing systems, and an online giant's IT network that crashed frequently.

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PM Modi, who calls GST the Good and Simple Tax, and his government have defended both as key structural reforms that will deliver huge benefit in the fight against corruption and black money.