Ruckus In Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Over GST 

Srinagar: Noisy scenes by the opposition in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly on Tuesday forced the Speaker to adjourn the House twice as the lawmakers took up the discussion on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation.

Opposition MLAs belonging to the National Conference (NC), the Congress and Independents stood up on their seats and later rushed towards the Speaker's chair as the four-day long special session started here. Speaker Kavinder Gupta ordered marshalling out of Independent MLA Engineer Rashid and some other opposition MLAs as they raised anti-GST slogans.

The House would resume at 2.30 p.m. The opposition parties including the NC, Congress and Independents said they were not against the GST per se, but were against the adoption of Amendment 101 in its present form. The opposition believes it will infringe on the special status of the state.

They argued that surrendering collection of taxes to the GST Council would take away the financial autonomy of the state as guaranteed under Article 370 of the Constitution. The opposition MLAs alleged that the ruling PDP under pressure from its BJP ally has decided to bulldoze through the GST implementation in the state. Jammu and Kashmir is the only state in the country where the GST has not been implemented so far. — (IANS)