No LBT without consensus, assures CM

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The meeting called by the Mumbai Congress unit between chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and traders association from Mumbai to resolve the Local Body Tax issue resulted in a division between the traders, as the Federation of Associations of Maharashtra (FAM) decided to keep away from the meet.
In the meeting, the chief minister is said to have assured that the government would not implement LBT until a consensus is reached with the traders. Interestingly, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar has also called a meeting on Friday along with the chief minister and traders association to resolve the issue.
With the initiative taken by Mumbai Regional Congress Committee (MRCC) a meeting by the chief minister was called at the Sahayadri Guest House, which was attended by more than 50 traders’ associations along with all the MPs from Congress party, including Priya Dutt, Milind Deora, Eknath Gaikwad and Gurudas Kamat.
Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association’s (FRTWA) Viren Shah said that the organisation had decided to withdraw its strike after the chief minister gave the assurance. “Mr Chavan has assured us that the LBT would not be implemented without consensus with the traders. Mr Chavan has clearly said that all the suggestions made by the traders would be studied and incorporated in the amendment for the implementation of LBT,” he said.
Mr Shah also commented on the absence of the FAM from Thursday’s meet. He said that if FAM represents all the trader’s body across Maharashtra, then they should have attended the meet.
However, Mohan Gurnani, president of FAM said that when there was already a meeting scheduled to resolve the LBT issue on Friday, there was no point in discussing the issue limited to Mumbai. After the meeting with traders of Thane last week, Mr Pawar had assured to call on a meet with the CM to resolve the LBT logjam.