Sushil Kumar Modi may head the empowered committee on GST

With the Left Front government's finance minister Asim Dasgupta losing his Khardah assembly seat to the TMC's Amit Mitra, corporate India's most awaited reform, the Goods & Services Tax or GST, is likely to get a shot in the arm. Dasgupta had been passionate about GST and its predecessor, the valueadded tax, or VAT. (He had been chairman of the empowered committee of state finance ministers on VAT as well.) But his progress with GST slowed down after rival politician from West Bengal, Pranab Mukherjee , was appointed the Union Finance Minister.

Mukherjee took little interest in pushing GST, an approach most members of the committee attribute to his unwillingness to work alongside Dasgupta. Mukherjee's uncharacteristic lack of skill in dealing with the GST converted an issue of economic policy to a political one, and one state after another ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party led National Democratic Alliance - which was the first mover of the tax reform while at the Centre in 2004 - began blocking it.

Early indications are that the UPA wants Bihar's Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi, a BJP leader, to replace Dasgupta as the chairman of the committee. Not only will Modi's negotiation skills and recent experience of implementing tax reforms in a tricky state like Bihar come in handy, the NDA-ruled states will find it difficult to resist the introduction of the GST.