New Delhi, May 30, 2020-
The Congress on Saturday criticised the Narendra Modi government on completing six years in office, saying the country stood at crossroads in the seventh year and the people were exhausted by the “weight of the government’s sins”.
Addressing a press conference, Congress General Secretary K.C. Venugopal said, “The first year of the second term of the Modi government has been a year of disappointment, disastrous management and pain.”
He said at the start of the seventh year, India stood at crossroads. “Citizens are exhausted by the weight of this government’s sins, ineptitude and callous insensitivity to the widespread suffering,” the Congress leader said.
Slamming the government over its performance in the last six years, Venugopal said, “Over the last six years, India witnessed a steady increase in the politics of distraction and false noise, to the point that it has become a defining mainstay of the Modi government’s administrative style.”
He said while it served the political interests of the BJP, it came at an “unprecedented economic and social cost” to the nation.
Hitting out at the Prime Minister Modi, Venugopal said Modi would do well to remember extraordinary promises beget extraordinary expectations. “But as we shall see, even the most ordinary and mundane expectations of keeping the country running were beyond the capabilities of this government which promised so much and delivered so very little,” he said.
The Congress also highlighted the failure of the government on the economic front, saying the Prime Minister announced two crore jobs whereas India witnessed the highest unemployment rate in the last 45 years which reached in 2017-18 to 6.1 per cent overall — 7.8 per cent in urban India and 5.3 per cent in rural India.
“Post Covid, India’s unemployment rate has soared to an unprecedented 27.11 per cent (CMIE),” he said.
He said under the Modi government, the GDP has become synonymous with ‘Grossly Declining Performance’. “Most international and national rating agencies have predicted negative GDP growth in Financial Year 2020-21. The economy had been mismanaged to the point of ruin long before Covid-19,” he said, adding the GDP growth has been sliding continuously for the last 21 months.
Congress spokesperson and media in-charge Randeep Surjewala said at the end of six years, it appeared the Modi government is at war with its people and is inflicting wounds on them, instead of healing them. “It is inflicting wounds on Mother India,” he said.
“This government is trying to fill coffers of a select group and is inflicting pain on the poor,” Surjewala alleged.
The Congress spokesperson demanded that a “virtual session” of Parliament be convened immediately to discuss pressing issues and the due process be set in motion for holding meetings of various parliamentary committees.
“The way in which the Prime Minister holds talks with the chief ministers through video conferencing, why cannot the standing committees and Parliament also be allowed to convene important meetings through virtual sessions,” he said.
To a question on the BJP”s charge of the Congress playing politics over the Covid-19 crisis, Venugopal accused the government of ignoring the suggestions. Venugopal said that being a responsible opposition, “it is our duty to raise the problems faced by the common people”.
“As Opposition, we highlighted the failures of the government,” he said.
Venugopal also said that the six years of the Modi government witnessed “loan write-offs” for bank fraudsters to the tune of Rs 66 lakh crore from 2014-2015 to September 2019.
He pointed out that in the last six years, India witnessed 32,868 bank frauds involving public money to the tune of Rs 2.70 lakh crore and stressed assets of the banks rose to Rs 16.5 thousand crore. “Bank NPAs rose 423 per cent from Rs 2.24 lakh crore on June 30, 2014 to Rs 9.5 lakh crore in March 2020,” Venugopal said.
He said, “The most shocking revelation of write-offs came on April 24, 2020 in an RTI reply. In the midst of Covid-19, the Modi government wrote off loans worth Rs 68,607 crore for the likes of Mehul Choksi, Nirav Modi, Jatin Mehta, Vijay Mallya and others.”
He slammed the government over the Indian rupee losing its value and becoming Asia’s worst performing currency.
The Congress also slammed the government over the Rs 20 lakh-crore Covid-19 relief package touted by the Prime MInister as 10 per cent of GDP to be a mere 0.83 per cent of GDP in reality.
“This has come as perhaps the most insensitive and callous announcement for the nation that waited over 60 days for relief,” he said.
Modi and his cabinet took oath this day last year for a second term in office after it won a massive mandate in the Lok Sabha elections. (Agency)
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