The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP on Thursday accused the Congress of making duplicitous statements on charges for Unified Payment Interface (UPI) transactions, pointing out the opposition party’s lawmakers are members of the standing committee on finance that had recommended exploring a viable revenue mechanism for UPI.
Gogoi said on X the committee on finance had not not discussed the UPI tax proposal that the Cntre announced. Congress lawmakers contended the panel did not discuss a specific proposal to impose a Merchant Discount Rate charge on Unified Payment Interface (UPI) transactions above Rs2000 from October 15, as was announced by the government on Wednesday.
The Congress said after the announcement that the move breaks the government’s promise of a free UPI system, while accusing it of “surrendering to American pressure”. “The Department of Finance did not have any specific proposal on UPI tax when they met the members of the Finance Committee.”
He said questions were raised on the need for MDR but the representatives of the government did not have any “specific or satisfactory answers at that point”. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the BJP’s claims were an attempt to divert attention from the backlash generated by the move. “Given the sustainability of the UPI ecosystem and the burden on the government exchequer, the Department is currently exploring two options: (i) Examining the feasibility of restoring MDR for certain high threshold transactions/ merchants; and (ii) a tiered incentive structure to phase-out the Government support in the next few years,” the ministry said.
Outside, they scream ‘Modi surrendered to America’ and ‘anti-people betrayal. Same people. Same issue. Opposite scripts depending on the venue. Committee mein serious, street pe drama.
In a post on X, the BJP said the parliamentary panel had 13 Opposition MPs, including 6 Congress MPs: Gaurav Gogoi, K Gopinath, Kishori Lal, Manish Tewari, P Chidambaram and Pramod Tewari.
“In the Parliamentary Committee, the same leaders said UPI needs a proper revenue model and can’t run forever on zero MDR. Classic Congress double-act,” the BJP said. Responding to the criticism, Manish Tewari said “no specific proposal qua the recent Merchant Discount Rate -MDR to be levied on UPI transactions from October 15 th 2026 was ever brought before the Parliamentary standing of Finance- rate, quantum, amount of fee to be charged, ceiling and exemption slabs etc.”
