New Delhi, Sept. 17 -- The Congress on Thursday rejected claims that its MPs who were part of the Parliament Standing Committee on Finance had supported the decision to levy a fee on high-value UPI payments, and said the Modi government was making "pathetic" attempts to divert attention from the "gigantic backlash" generated after the "UPI tax" decision.

The opposition party's assertion came after the government questioned the rationale behind Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's criticism of the decision to levy a fee on UPI payments to merchants above Rs 2,000, saying a parliamentary standing committee had backed such a move and Congress members in the panel had supported it.

A senior government functionary said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance had pressed for a tiered Merchant Discount Rate (MDR)/revenue framework for Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and noted that it should be notified and operationalised without delay.

Five Congress MPs, including P Chidambaram, Manish Tewari, Gaurav Gogoi, Kishori Lal and K Gopinath, were present on August 12 when the report was adopted, with no dissent recorded in the published minutes, the BJP functionary said.

Dismissing the claims, Gogoi said the Parliament Standing Committee on Finance did not discuss the UPI tax proposal that the Modi government announced recently.

The Department of Finance did not have any specific proposal on "UPI tax" when they met the members of the finance committee, Gogoi said.

Questions were raised on the need for MDR, but the government representatives did not have any specific or satisfactory answers at that point, Gogoi said.

"I reiterate that the recent UPI tax policies hurt the small Indian merchants, vendors, entrepreneurs and help the major American corporations. Roll back UPI tax. Stop surrendering, PM Modi," Gogoi said on X.

Tagging Gogoi's post, Congress general secretary in charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh, said, "The news plantation economy which has thrived in the Modi regime stands exposed. Glad you rebutted."

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.