Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh lashed out at chief minister Narendra Modi for raising objections against goods and service tax (GST) that has led to its delay in implementation.

The senior minister of the UPA government said he failed to understand why Modi was opposed to GST when it was the brainchild of former finance minister Yashwant Sinha. “I have come to Modi’s city and want to ask just one question. Why is he against GST?” asked Ramesh, who was on a one-day visit to Ahmedabad on Tuesday to raise awareness about Land Acquisition Act.

The central minister said the idea was first introduced by Sinha in 2002 when he was finance minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government. He even pointed out that it was included in the manifestos of both the Congress and the BJP.

“I met Sushma Swaraj in 2011 for a consensus on the implementation of GST and told her about the problem due to the protest by Gujarat. She had then assured of support saying it was there in the BJP’s manifesto, too. But, nothing has happened till now,” said Ramesh.

The Union minister also said that he had met Modi last year and asked him about his reasons for opposing GST. But the CM had avoided giving a reply. He further stated that the central government was open to compensating any state government if it suffered a financial loss due to the implementation of GST. The UPA government, said Ramesh, does not want to pass any act without all-party consent and this is why GST has not been implemented due to the opposition from only one person.

State government spokespersons Nitin Patel and Saurabh Patel described Ramesh’s allegation as baseless and said that the UPA government had failed to set up the infrastructure for rolling GST which has led to its delay.

Talking about the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the minister said they would highlight the milestones created by the UPA government in the last eight years like RTI, MNREGA, Forest Rights Act, RTE, Food bill and Land Acquisition Bill.

Next year’s polls would be a battle of two ideologies, i.e. Congress and RSS, said Ramesh. “Even with BJP, we have a direct fight only in 7 states while Congress will be taking on regional parties in 22 states.”