Amit Shah and Arun Jaitley meet PM, trigger buzz of major announcement

Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted a top-level meeting at his residence on Thursday which was attended by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah, triggering buzz that a major announcement is imminent.

News18, quoting sources, said that that Modi, Shah and Jaitley had discussed the state of the economy at the meeting, and that a major announcement can be expected before Diwali.

The Prime Minister is said to be keen on taking measures to provide an impetus to the economy. With this in mind, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley met Cabinet colleagues including Piyush Goyal and Suresh Prabhu on Thursday.

In addition, the GST Council will meet on Friday, where sources say it will discuss the possibility of bringing petroleum products under the ambit of GST with a view to reducing prices. It will also consider other relaxations to ease the pain brought on by the common tax regime.

The development comes a day after Modi sternly defended the state of the economy in a speech to company secretaries. The Prime Minister pulled out a series of statistics to prove that the economy has significantly improved since he came to power in 2014. He also labelled those criticising the economy as pessimists, adding that judgements should not be made based on one quarter of slower growth.

Modi had also said he was open to a comprehensive review of GST based on feedback from the first three months since its implementation.

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Further fuelling speculation of a major announcement was the fact that Shah had abruptly abandoned the BJP's Jan Suraksha Yatra in Kerala to return to Delhi.

There has been talk of a fiscal stimulus being under consideration to boost the economy, after India grew at just 5.7 percent in the quarter ending June 2017.