New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted on Saturday about his forthcoming visit to the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.

But Modi was treated to an unsolicited lesson in horticulture hours before he was scheduled to take off for Manila for the Asean summit and a day after the goods and services tax (GST) was subjected to a sweeping recast.

"Four months and 10 days is the time taken for common sense to germinate, flower and ripen into a fruit," Congress leader and former finance minister P. Chidambaram tweeted.

Chidambaram was referring to the time the Centre had taken to rejig the GST after its rollout on July 1 when Modi had described it as "good and simple tax".

Chidambaram did not forget to pay a "compliment" to the ministry headed by his successor Arun Jaitley: "The finance ministry must be complimented for improving macro-economic situation in four months and 10 days."

The Opposition has cited how the government had tried to brazen it out in the face of repeated appeals for a GST course correction. Tongue in cheek, Chidambaram suggested what may have prompted the government to eat humble pie: "Thank you Gujarat. Your election did what Parliament and common sense could not do."

The Congress declared on Saturday that the campaign on the GST would continue till the tax became "truly simple" with one tax, capped below 18 per cent.

Rahul Gandhi said only a government that lived in an ivory tower could be so oblivious to the miseries of the people as to defend reckless decisions like demonetisation and the flawed GST.

He told a rally in Gujarat: "We won't stop the fight till it becomes one simple tax, capped below 18 per cent. If the BJP government won't, the Congress will do it when we come to power."