Gabbar Singh Tax: Tweeple throw weight behind Rahul’s remarks on GST

Gabbar Singh—the main bandit in Ramesh Sippy's Sholay—has become a buzzing metaphor for the BJP-led NDA government in the cyber space. Soon after Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Monday labelled GST— Goods and Services Tax—as Gabbar Singh Tax aimed at looting the hard earned money of people, social media users have let loose their creativity to take pot shots at the economic policies of the government.

Over 1,600 twitter users have responded to a question by the handle @RealHistoryPic: “What's your full form of GST?” “From Greatly Screwed-up Tax” to “Go Sell Tea” and from “Gayi Sarkar Tumhari” to “Ghatia Sanghi Tax” and “Giant Statues Tax”, the acronym has been getting many new full forms from the social media users ahead of Assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

“Their GST is not GST, but Gabbar Singh Tax,” Rahul Gandhi had said at the Congress's ‘Navsarjan Gujarat Janadesh’ rally in Gandhinagar on Monday, a day after revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia stated that GST required a major rejig. Rahul’s comments—aimed at the PM Modi's recent remarks that the Congress was “an equal partner” in decisions about the economic reform—have triggered a blizzard of satirical memes, videos and jokes on the internet.

“They (BJP) had promised to build Ram Nagar (symbolic of Ram Rajya) but Gabbar Singh has arrived well in advance,” wrote Islam Huassain along with hashtag Gabbar Singh Tax. “Taxes breaking backs of small traders while NPA rise massively. And dissenters are raided by tax authorities,” commented Madhuri Danthala on twitter along with the hashtag Gabbar Singh Tax terrorism.

Gabbar Singh Tax is making the economy dance like Basanti and Indians are as helpless as Thakur, wrote Silly on twitter referring to the movie.

Neeraj Bhatia posted a video that showed Gujarat explaining as to why GST is being dubbed as Gabbar Singh Tax.

“Gabbar Singh Tax; the name of the game is extortion. A historic tax reform architecture prepared by the Congress, ruined by incompetent BJP,” National Spokesperson Congress, Sanjay Jha wrote on Twitter.

Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah also shared a clip from the movie that showed villagers thwarting dacoits who had come to extort them.

Here’s a collection of several other innovative tweets through which netizens pointed out how prices of all essentials including medicines have gone up after implementation of GST. In other tweets, angry tweeple accused the BJP of buying MLAs and MPs after collecting money from tax payers.