Siddaramaiah trolls centre over latest round of GST hikes on food items

|HT|

Taking a dig at the Central government for the latest round of Goods and Services Tax hikes on various essential food items, former Karnataka Chief Minister and current Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah said the government instead of helping people is trying to burden them with more taxes. Just like many others in the Opposition, he also termed GST as 'Gabbar Singh Tax'. Pre-packaged and labelled pulses, and cereals like rice, wheat, and flour (atta) will now attract 5 per cent GST when branded and packed in a unit container, whereas curd, lassi, and puffed rice would attract 5 per cent tax cent when pre-packaged and labelled.

Besides, hotel accommodation priced up to ₹1,000 per day shall now be taxed at 12 per cent.

The recommendations on GST rates that were made during the 47th GST Council meeting held in June come into effect on Monday.

"By levying GST even on unbranded packed rice, wheat, milk, curd and other daily essentials, Narendra Modi government has proven that they have budged to the demands of branded companies and theirs is a suit-boot sarkar," he wrote on Twitter. He went on to say that while prices of vegetables and other essential foods have already gone up due to an increase in fuel prices, the incomes of families have, however, come down because of unemployment.

"Depriving people of their food is 'Acche Din' for Narendra Modi-led government. Snatching away the rice, wheat, milk, curd, and meat from poor people is equivalent to murdering them," he added.

In context to fugitive economic offenders such as Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya, he said while these people are living their lavish lifestyles abroad and the government here is "incapable" of bringing them back to India, and at the same time "is all out to hit poor people hard".

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)