Put pressure on Modi government on GST: Prime minister’s brother to traders

• Shubham
• 31 July, 2021

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By: Shubham Ghosh

PRAHLAD Modi, the brother of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and vice president of All-India Fair Price Shop Association, on Friday (30) asked traders not to pay the Goods and Services Tax (GST) till the authorities met their demands and also advised them to launch an agitation over the message to the Modi government as well as the government in the western Indian state of Maharashtra which is ruled by a Shiv Sena-led coalition.

Addressing a gathering of traders in Thane, Maharashtra, Modi said the agitation should be such that “Uddhav (Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray) and Narendra (Modi) will come to your doorstep”.

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The GST is one indirect tax for the whole of India, which aims to make the country one unified common market. It was brought into effect on July 1, 2017, by the Modi government.

Modi, who said he represented 6.5 lakh (0.6 million) fair price shop owners in the country, asked the traders not to pay the GST till the various demands that they have raised are met by the authorities.

‘Be it Narendra Modi or anyone else, they have to listen to you’

“Be it Narendra Modi or anyone else, they have to listen to you. Today I am telling you this, first write to the Maharashtra government that we will not pay GST till you listen to us. We are in lokshahi (democracy)… not in ghulami (under subjugation),” he said.

Modi, who is five years younger to the prime minister, spoke out after meeting the traders who have been adversely hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown that has been imposed subsequently to curb the outbreak, in Thane district.

Various traders have told Modi that cases lodged against them for violating Covid-19 norms should be withdrawn since the economy was taking a toll under the crisis. The e-commerce platforms have not made things easier for them either.

In February this year, Modi made the headlines by taking part in a sit-in dharna (protest) at the airport in Lucknow, the capital of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, alleging that his supporters were detained by the police after they arrived at the airport to receive him.