Union Minister for IT, Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad said the BJP was neither the official nor unofficial adviser of third front or any front and affirmed that Telangana remained a focus area of the BJP along with Andhra Pradesh, and the Karnataka results have only emboldened their efforts to break into South India.
He was responding to a question on the Federal Front proposed by Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao against the Congress and BJP while speaking to reporters here on Thursday on the completion of four years of NDA’s rule.
On the bypoll results announced on Thursday, the IT Minister said his party wasn’t much worried as they were not a barometer of government’s performance and local factors play a role in bypolls unlike Parliament elections where delivery of the government matters.
Fuel prices
United opposition was no match to the BJP, he said reminding that the year 1999 was totally different from 2019 as people were experiencing development and stability while the world was listening to India’s voice due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts.
Giving an hint on the review of fuel prices, the Minister said that the government was studying the rising prices holistically and will take a decision taking long-term and short-term impact into consideration. That work is in progress and very soon the government will come out with a decision.
He defended the the government’s decision not to reduce oil prices when crude oil prices were low stating that the money earned on fuel was spent on improving infrastructure and pro-poor programmes.
Reeling out the achievements of NDA’s four year rule, Mr. Prasad said on the international front India’s voice was being respected and Pakistan was isolated while middlemen don’t influence the government’s decisions. The digital governance has saved ₹ 90,000 crore and courageous decisions have been taken on the economic front. He said bank frauds were unearthed and in the case of Nirav Modi ₹ 10,000 crore property was seized.
IT in small towns
Stating that IT ecosystem was rising in India, BPO movement has gone to small towns as well with 91 BPOs set up in 27 states. Nearly 1.30 crore were employed in the IT sector of which 39.89 lakhs were in direct employment. “We have generated 6 lakh IT jobs in the last four years of which 1 lakh was just in 2017-18,” he said. Mr. Prasad, however, made it clear that the ITIR project was shelved.
The Minister rejected the allegations of snooping into social media accounts of people as baseless and said it cared for privacy of people. The government will also soon come out with a robust data protection policy.
