Former Union Minister S. Jaipal Reddy has slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance Government for misleading people and pooh-pooing its tall claims of development in the first year of rule, termed Prime Minister Narendra Modi as one who displayed 'ignorance of history and arrogance of power'.
At a press conference in Gandhi Bhavan, the State Congress headquarters here on Wednesday, Mr. Reddy said that after the restraint the Congress had shown in the first year of the NDA rule, it would no longer tolerate arrogance from Mr. Modi.
Reeling statistics, he said that the rate of poverty reduction was fastest in Indian history under the United Progressive Alliance rule during the decade ending 2014, quoting the NDA's Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian. The per capita income had grown three times, from Rs.24,143 in 2004 to Rs.68,741 in 2012, he stated. The annual growth of 8.5 per cent too was a record, he added.
Agriculture growth
"I am not quoting off-hand. This is straight from Finance Minister Arun Jaitly's economic survey." he said, adding that agriculture growth had now slipped from 4.7 per cent to a mere 1.7 per cent. It was time the NDA Government stopped making such false and shallow claims, he said, categorically.
The NDA Government and particularly Mr. Modi had not bothered to do anything about keeping up its pre-poll promises, Mr. Reddy said, asking what had the Prime Minister done about bringing back money stashed away in banks abroad. "Mr. Modi promised to get back the money in 100 days," he recalled.
On Mr. Modi's statements about 'no scams' in the NDA rule, Mr. Reddy said, "Wait and watch. There is an inevitable time lag between occurrence of corruption and exposure of a scam," he stated.
On the Prime Minister's frequent foreign tours, Mr. Reddy said that they had only reduced Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj to a 'dummy'. Interestingly, he said that the 'guru' of Mr. Modi and Mrs. Sushma - L.K. Advani was now reduced to a 'mummy'.
