We can add the parent pom as a dependency with type pom and make exclusion on that. Because anyhow parent pom is downloaded. This worked for me
<dependency>
<groupId>com.abc.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>abc-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
<version>2.1.5.RELEASE</version>
<type>pom</type>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
<artifactId>gson</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>