Mamata Banerjee admitted to have made a blunder, a rarity in the public speeches that she has made in her more than four decades long public life.

“I believe GST should be withdrawn. Ours was the first political party to support the idea. Amit Mitra (former state finance minister) had convinced me. It was a blunder. A very big blunder,” said Mamata while talking to reporters in Siliguri. “The Centre is taking away all the money collected by the tax. They are only indulging in wasteful expenditure, diverting all the funds to the BJP-ruled states. I believe the states' collections should be returned to the states."

“Apart from defence and border management, the Centre has no other (fiscal) responsibility. Everything is done by the state. I have seen advertisements of health insurance being made free. It is a complete lie. In our state we had to pay Rs. 20,000 crore from our GST pool,” Mamata said.

Launched in July 2017, the Goods and Service Tax (GST) substituted the jerry-rigged value-added and sales tax collected by the Centre and the states. It has been mired in controversy over the different rates and the state’s shares over the years

Of all the goods, the different values of taxes attached to the non-branded, branded and caramel popcorn had come to embody the “warped logic” behind the taxation.

Since becoming chief minister Mamata has often used the alleged “stepmotherly treatment” of Bengal like stoppage of funds for welfare schemes as an example of Centre’s apathy towards the state.

Recently the Calcutta High Court and later the Supreme Court instructed the Narendra Modi government to release funds earmarked for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme for Bengal.

“GST, state GST every penny is going to the Centre,” Mamata said. “They are taking the funds from us, they are obliged to return the state’s money to the states.”

At his annual speech from the Red Fort during the Independence Day celebration, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a reform in the GST, which the leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha had called as Gabbar Singh Tax.

“The government will bring in next-generation GST reforms, which will reduce the tax burden on the common man,” Modi said from the rampart of the Red Fort. “It will reduce taxes on daily essentials, benefitting MSMEs, local vendors and consumers, and simultaneously stimulate economic growth and create a more efficient, citizen-friendly economy.”

After the GST reforms were carried out in September this year, the ministry of finance reported a 4.6 per cent increase in gross GST revenue for the month of October, compared to the collections from October 2024.

Mamata had earlier said that Bengal would incur a revenue loss of nearly Rs. 20,000 crore.

“The Centre should clear our dues first,” Mamata said.