AGARTALA/ NEW DELHI ,May 8 (TIWN):- Tripura MP Jiten Choudhury in Rajya Sabha TV Debate on Goods and Services Tax (GST) on Thursday evening said that this GST is no reform, and the Rajya Sabha must not pass it”. The BJP-led government was able to coin new words like "Cooperative Federalism", but moves like cutting central funds for various programmes has only "hurt the States", Jiten added. Jiten also accused the Centre of being biased towards corporate, while increasing the burden on the common man in form of taxes. If the government is determined to try and pass the GST on its timeline, in spite of its failure to convince its own state leaders to write a decent law, then the Opposition must stand up and prevent a Bill that may grievously hurt this country’s economy from being passed as-is.

Congress party's walk-out from the Lok Sabha, lodging protest against the new GST regime. It is not clear what changes she or her party wanted in the GST regime, an idea that was first mooted and even introduced in Parliament by her party when in power.

The problem is that the country is in such a political situation, with states flexing their muscles in the name of federalism, that a new idea like the GST regime does not appear feasible in its original form. Whichever be the government at the Centre, it has to accept the fact that the Indian polity is not yet ready for wholesale changes in economic policies that will require major shifts either in the way states collect their taxes or in the way companies do business.

The Finance Minister also sought cooperation of the members of the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling NDA does not enjoy majority, to support the constitutional amendment bill for roll out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) or else the April 1, 2016 deadline for its implementation would be missed. These initiatives were necessary to send "right signals" to the investors as the country is still recovering from various difficulties, he said.

Jiten Chaudhury is the only MP from Northeast India who is usually invited into this kind important debates on National Rajya Sabha TV.

Bhartruhari Mahtab MP Loksabha ,BJD,Emeritus Prof,,Associate Editor ,Girish Nikam were  among who took part in  the debate  today at 9.30 PM. 

Even though Manik Sarkar packed off his most dynamic Industry Minister into oblivion in 2014 to Delhi with the sole intention of curbing Jiten’s rising popularity in Tripura,   but Jiten’s stint in Lok Sabha made him famous in national stage. It is worthy to mention that in less than a year in Lok Sabha, MP Jiten Chaudhury has become more famous nationally and a well known personality than ‘clean’ CM Manik Sarkar. Apart from that Jiten Chaudhiry visited multiple foreign countries as part of official parliamentary delegation since last year.