PATNA: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha on Friday termed demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax as failures and asked Prime Narendra Modi to sack Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over GST.
Sinha, who was the former finance minister during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's regime, rubbished Modi's claim that demonetisation and GST were successful, saying both exercises had actually failed.
Describing the GST as a “total mess”, Sinha asked the Prime Minister to remove Jaitley in a bid to improve the country's economy.
GST has ruined the nation's economy, Sinha asserted, adding that "Jaitley as the Finance Minister did not apply his brain when he prepared and implemented the GST. This is evident the way he has been tinkering it time and again. Even today some changes have been made. But any patchwork will not work. GST needs an overhaul."
While addressing a function here organised by rebel Janata Dal (United) leader Uday Narayan Choudhary, the senior BJP leader hit out at Modi government over noteban saying, “None of the black money has returned to the banks" after Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes were scrapped in November last year, adding that “but as usual the central government has been telling lies to claim that it was a success.”
Sinha's hard-hitting statements came two days after BJP celebrated the first anniversary of the exercise as 'anti- black money day' and the opposition observed a 'black day' on November 8.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said demonetisation was a "decisive battle" 125 crore Indians fought against black money and won.
The prime minister asked people to participate in a survey that is available on the Narendra Modi app to send him the feedback on how they feel about the government's efforts "to uproot corruption and black money."
While Opposition leaders such as the Congress' Rahul Gandhi and P Chidambaram, Trinamool Congress's Mamata Banerjee, RJD's Lalu Yadav and Left leaders argued that it had done none of the above and actually helped convert black money into white, the government fielded a host of ministers to counter the barrage of criticism and defend the move.
