BJP parliamentarian Bhagwanth Khuba today said that neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor any of his party leaders had ever made the promise of bringing back black money stashed in tax havens and distributing it among the citizens. He termed it as an “ill-intentioned hype” created by the Opposition to malign the image of the Prime Minister and his party. He was addressing a media conference here on Saturday for giving a report card of the Union government’s performance in the last four years.
“Just show me the evidence to prove that BJP had made such a promise during the run-up to 2014 Lok Sabha election or after it. Our focus on black money was misused by the Opposition to show us in a bad light,” he said.
Asked about the pre-poll promise of creating 2 crore jobs annually, the Bidar Lok Sabha member said that his party had not specified that the jobs would be in the public sector. Citing a famous phrase – Kayakave Kailasa – from a Vachana of 12th-century social reformer and philosopher Basaveshwara to mean that all jobs were equal, he said that the promise was completely fulfilled by his government by extending financial assistance to create small jobs and self-employment.
“We never said that we would create two crore government jobs every year. We have taken measures to create small jobs and self-employment by offering financial assistance through MUDRA scheme. Around 9 crore people have benefited from the scheme. Don’t you think that their self-employment was also a job? Our government is successful in fulfilling the promise,” he said.
To a question on duty-free pulse imports going against the interests of domestic farmers, Mr. Khuba said that the imports were inevitable to fill the gap between domestic supply and demand and keep prices under control. He dismissed the allegations that the imports were driven by Union government’s zeal to safeguard the interests of Adani group, a major importer of foodgrains.
“If the split pulses price shoots up, you [media] start writing only about it and nothing else. In order to strike a balance between demand and supply and to consider the interests of both farmers and consumers, we are importing pulses,” he said.
BJP leaders B.G. Patil, Shashil G. Namoshi, Dattatreya Patil Revoor, Subhash Guttedar, Amarnath Patil, Basavaraj Mattimud, Sanganna Ijeri and others were present.
