New Delhi, March 25: Taking on the Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s announcement of the income scheme for the poor, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday called the scheme a bluff. Taking the jibe further, Jaitley said Congress has been betraying the nation for more than seven decades.
The Congress chief announced that the party will give a yearly sum of Rs 72,000 to 20 per cent of the poorest upon coming to power.
In a Facebook post, Jaitley slammed the party for only giving the people slogans and doing very little to implement them. Scoffing at the Congress proposed scheme, he said the announcement was an admission of the fact that the UPA government was not able to remove poverty during its terms.
Jaitley also took a jibe at former prime minister Indira Gandhi and her son former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi saying that in 1971, Indira gave a legendary slogan ‘Garibi Hatao’ but her economics was not about increasing production and generating wealth but only about redistribution of poverty. “Rajiv Gandhi had a historic opportunity to remove poverty. Initially, he showed hope, but his Government got caught in unsavoury controversies preventing any significant and major changes”.
Jaitley said between 2004-2014, the UPA government conferred a large number of ‘rights’ without resources to implement them.
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He clarified that the Narendra Modi-led government introduced the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) through the banking system. Besides subsidies for food, fertilizer, kerosene, 55 Ministries handed over subsidies to the poor through the DBT which was enabled by AADHAAR.
Dismissing the loan waiver of the Congress as a bluff, Jaitley said, “The Congress in Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Karnataka promised a loan waiver. In most places, the promise remains unfulfilled. It has a history of bluff announcements. Karnataka so far has spent only Rs 2,600 crore, Madhya Pradesh Rs 3,000 crore and Punjab Rs 5,500 crore.”
Jaitley concluded saying that “if the Congress’ announcement is tested on simple arithmetic, Rs 72,000 for five crore families works out to be Rs 3.6 lakh crore, which is less than 2/3rd of what is being given”.
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