Bharatiya Janata Party national secretary Navjot Singh Sidhu on Thursday called on the Congress to explain the “startling” figures of poverty in the reports of the Planning Commission and said the party which had vowed to eradicate poverty was doing the opposite.
Speaking at a press conference here, Mr. Sidhu along with senior leader Kirit Somaiya called on parties to support the Bharat bandh against price rise on July 5 and said BJP leaders were already mobilising people in various States. Mr. Sidhu said petrol prices were hiked by 26 per cent in one year and diesel by 30 per cent. He said the government had earned Rs. 1 lakh crore additional income from the sale/auction of the telecom spectrum. This was a windfall and should be used to control the prices. The income from the spectrum was not taken into account in the budget and it should be used for the common man, he added.
He said the government claimed India was growing at eight per cent. But this growth was only for a small section of the rich. The “Congress haath (hand, the party symbol)” has slapped the “aam aadmi” and cut the pocket of the poor. He quoted from the Tendulkar Committee report and the Arjun Sengupta report to indicate the dire poverty in the country and said these reports were not discussed widely and the Congress did not pay heed to them.
In addition, the government had foregone huge revenues to favour the rich and the industries while it spent relatively smaller amounts on the social sector and rural employment. He said food grains were rotting in Punjab and other places while people were going hungry.
Mr. Sidhu said the global prices of wheat, sugar and soyabean were much lower than in India. The country's inflation rate was one of the highest when compared to other countries. Through the bandh, the party would demand a rollback of the high petroleum prices and had the support so far of the Shiv Sena and the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) in Maharashtra.
