States need 'hard cash', govt's 'letter of comfort' has no value: Chidambaram on GST compensation
New Delhi: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Thursday said the Centre's reported proposal of giving "letter of comfort" to states to borrow money to bridge the GST compensation gap were "just words of comfort" on a piece of paper that has "no value".
He asserted that the states need "hard cash" and if they are forced to borrow, the axe will inevitably fall on capital expenditure by the states.
"Government says it will give a Letter of Comfort' to the states to borrow money to bridge the GST Compensation gap. These are just words of comfort on a piece of paper that has no value," Chidambaram said in a series of tweets.
"What states need is hard cash. Only the central government has multiple options and the flexibility to raise the resources and pay the shortfall in GST compensation to the states," the former finance minister said.
If the states are forced to borrow, the axe will inevitably fall on capital expenditure by the states which have already suffered a cut, he said.
Chidambaram has been urging the government to take concrete measures to revive the economy and has called upon it to provide GST compensation to states, as promised to them at the time of GST implementation.
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Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
