Party's senior spokesperson Satyavrat Chaturvedi said ”the Congress will not attend the special GST meeting on GST implementation.”The decision came after Congress President Sonia Gandhi met former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh along with other leaders on Thursday. The Congress, which had pushed for a GST when it was in power, has spoken to other Opposition parties, which may follow suit. The GST, billed as the biggest tax reform since Independence, will replace about 20 federal and state taxes and turn India into a single market. Mamata feels the GST, to be launched on July 1, is being implemented in a hurry and will hurt small businesses. Sources said the Congress was apparently irked with Prime Minister Narendra Modi trying to emulate India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's midnight “tryst with destiny” speech on the eve of Independence.

Source: The Telegraph June 29, 2017 10:01 UTC