BJP MPs on Sunday attended a daylong workshop in Parliament at which a resolution was passed praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the recent GST rate cut. The resolution also urged manufacturers and traders to pass on the benefits to consumers.
Modi attended different sessions on the first day of the “Sansad Karyashala”, sitting in the last row. Sources said the MPs were divided into different groups based on their constituencies. The groups included MPs representing urban seats, rural constituencies, areas where Left Wing Extremism is a problem, coastal areas, and the Northeast and hilly areas. Clusters of MPs were also formed based on department-related standing committees of Parliament. The PM is learnt to have interacted with the MPs in each of these groups, sharing his experiences with them. With the urban MPs, he discussed issues related to the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, and sanitation.
“Attended the ‘Sansad Karyashala’ in Delhi. MP colleagues from all over India and other senior leaders exchanged valuable perspectives on diverse issues,” Modi posted on X. “In our party, platforms like ‘Sansad Karyashala’ are important because they are great forums to learn from each other and deliberate on how we can serve people even better.”
The MPs are set to meet again for a session on Monday afternoon, a day before the election for the Vice-President of India. NDA MPs have been invited to join later during the session for a discussion and to have tea with the PM. The dinners that the MPs had been invited to, one with the PM and another with BJP president and Union Health Minister J P Nadda, have been cancelled because of the floods in Punjab and other parts of the country.
On Sunday, the resolution presented by Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal read, “New reforms in the GST introduced recently under the guidance of Hon’ble PM Narendra Modi have the potential of achieving all the key objectives and hence merit. Taxation is central to the economy of any country and the real test of the abilities of any Government lies in evolving a tax regime that promotes production, encourages consumption and yet significantly adds to the coffers of the nation, the resolution noted.”
“Before 2014, while the governments failed to bring GST, Prime Minister Narendra Modi not only brought GST but also brought it with consensus from across the country,” the resolution said, adding that in just eight years, the GST taxpayer base has more than doubled from 66 lakh in 2017 to over 1.5 crore.
Annual collections under the regime, it added, surged to more than Rs 22 lakh crore in 2024–25, growing at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of over 18%, with GST collections now having reached close to Rs. 2 lakh crore a month. “The next phase of reforms, guided once again by the Prime Minister’s conviction, has further simplified the system and placed the citizen at its heart,” the resolution said.
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It emphasised that rates on essentials such as food and medicines, as well as the price of electronic goods, had been significantly reduced. “Therefore, this resolution calls upon manufacturers/traders, big and small, to take pride in ensuring that reductions and rebates flow directly to the consumer,” the resolution stated.
BJP’s Bangalore South MP Tejasvi Surya delivered a presentation on the effective use of social media. Rajya Sabha MP Sangeeta Yadav also made a presentation on social media and highlighted its various aspects with respect to women’s empowerment. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also addressed the MPs. A parliamentarian who attended the workshop said its idea was to enhance the skills of MPs and explore what new experiments they had conducted in their constituencies.