The BJP on April 5 termed the Congress’ manifesto for the coming Lok Sabha polls a “bundle of lies”, which was brought out to “create confusion among the voters”, since the party, despite being in power for much of the history of independent India, had not fulfilled any of the promises made in its earlier manifestos. BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi also alleged that the Congress manifesto had used photographs of Thailand, which, Mr. Trivedi referred to as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “favourite place”, and one from Buffalo in the United States.
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Mr. Trivedi said the Congress, which ruled the country for several decades, was talking about ‘nyay’ (justice) today, but its governments did not do justice when in power.
Responding to the Congress’s undertaking in its manifesto for a caste-based census and OBC reservations, Mr. Trivedi said that the history of both the Congress and the socialist parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, which had benefited politically from the Mandal politics of the 1990s, “exposed the lie”. “The Kaka Kallelkar report came out during a Congress government, as did the Mandal Commission report, which came out in 1980, but both were ignored. The Janata Dal government under V.P. Singh announced the implementation of the Mandal Commission report [which recommended reservations in government jobs and educational institutions for Other Backward Classes], on August 7, 1990, despite Independence Day being just a week away. He did this, and [the late socialist leader] Sharad Yadav had written about this, because then Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal, with whom V.P. Singh was at odds, was to hold a massive rally on August 9 which could have led to the break up of the Janata Dal,” he said. “This is the commitment to OBC rights that the Opposition has shown as compared to what Prime Minister Modi has done of sabka saath, sabka vikas [with everyone, development for everyone],” Mr. Trivedi added.
The Congress released its manifesto for the Lok Sabha polls on April 5, terming it “Nyay” with a section on what all it will be repealing with regard to the decisions taken by the Modi government, including PM Cares and the Agnipath scheme for short term recruitments in the armed forces.