Will PM Modi lower GST cap to 18 per cent with an eye on Gujarat polls?
The old adage is: If the going gets tough, the tough get going. But this adage is by and large military-specific.
However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a past master in political engineering and in the art of making the impossible possible, may well adapt to this adage politically. Now that he knows that his home turf Gujarat is more and more looking like a path strewn with embers, one can expect from the Great Machiavelli of contemporary Indian politics to think out of the box and bamboozle the opposition and the electorate alike.
One should expect PM Modi to make an out-of-the-box political announcement in the context of Gujarat where the Election Commission is expected to announce the state assembly polls within days. Now that it's public knowledge that Gujarat is not exactly a bed of roses for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has been ruling the state for 22 years on the trot, expect Modi to make a string of trailblazing announcements in Gujarat in a couple of days. What this purported announcement is going to be like? Well, nobody has a clue but one can take blind shots to decode the jigsaw puzzle.
Is the Modi government going to unveil the mother of all sops before assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat? Can it be an announcement lowering the cap of Goods and Services Tax (GST) from the current 28 per cent to 18 per cent?
This is one issue which the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been pressurising the Modi government on of late. Well informed quarters say that the Modi government is seriously mulling over the RSS suggestion and a decision is likely by this weekend.
The RSS argument is that given the decline of popularity of the Modi government in the past few weeks on parameters of economy, jobs and business climate, lowering the GST cap to 18 per cent could be a veritable game changer and steal the Opposition's thunder. The Congress, the only serious opposition to the BJP in both the poll-bound states of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, has been shouting from rooftops that its version of GST was capped at 18 per cent whereas the Modi government had imposed a back-breaking burden of 28 per cent GST on the people. The lowering of the GST cap to 18 per cent would take the wind from the sails of the Opposition, the RSS argument goes. The Modi government is said to be seriously considering the RSS suggestion but needs some time for proper home work.
Connected with this political suspense thriller is the issue of announcement of poll schedule for Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. Why did the Election Commission segregate Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat in announcing assembly elections dates when both the state assemblies' tenure ends simultaneously in January 2018 - 18 January in case of Himachal and 22 January in case of Gujarat? Why despite this did the EC have to announce only the Himachal Pradesh polling dates - single-phase polling on November 9 but the counting of votes only on December 18 - and leave out Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state?
There are no clear answers. The fact is that PM Modi is scheduled to visit Gujarat on October 16 and since Gujarat assembly polls are yet to be announced there is no model code of conduct in place and PM Modi can make whatever sops he wishes to announce in his home state. The logical surmise is that the EC may announce the Gujarat polls schedule any day after October 17, if not October 17 itself.
The immediate prognosis of this is that a constitutional body such as the EC has become a handmaiden of the current government at the Centre. It's a sad commentary on the so-called independence of the EC which the Congress party has justifiably pointed out though the track-record of Congress governments was no better.
If that were so, the EC could have deferred the announcement of elections in both Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat on or after October 17. But it didn't do so, perhaps on instructions of the Central government.
It only implies that the Modi government is conveying a brutal message to the Opposition - read Congress - because it's the only major Opposition party to challenge the BJP in both the states. The message is this: We will do whatever and you can do whatever as we care two hoots.
But wait! There is a clear strategy behind Modi government's clever ploy of announcing elections only in Himachal Pradesh and leaving out Gujarat for now. Suppose the Modi government finally comes up with the big-buck GST-related announcement in the next few days and the Congress decides to challenge it before the EC and competent courts for alleged violation of model code of conduct, even in the worst case scenario of an adverse judicial order, the BJP'S Gujarat campaign will remain unaffected because the state is not under model code of conduct regime till Gujarat elections are announced.
Moreover, the political importance of Gujarat is much higher than Himachal Pradesh. It's in Gujarat, not in Himachal Pradesh, where the BJP is facing a real challenge. Unlike Gujarat, where the BJP has been in power for 22 years, Himachal Pradesh has the dubious distinction of seldom repeating the incumbent government.
Most importantly, from the perspective of the BJP and Modi, a loss in Himachal Pradesh won't trigger any political tsunami just as the victory of Congress in neighbouring Punjab earlier this year didn't. But a loss for the BJP in Gujarat will inevitably result in a massive political fallout.
Therefore, from BJP's perspective it makes much greater sense in PM Modi announcing major sops from the soil of Gujarat on October 16. Modi is a master political juggler who pulls off unexpected trump cards from his hat in every crucial election. In Uttar Pradesh, it was his Diwali-Ramzan remark that had polarised the voters. In an industrialized state like Gujarat the game-changer has to be business-specific.
Will it be lowering the GST cap to 18 per cent? Well, no one can say for sure as of now but we'll get to know soon!