Continuing his tirade against the Congress’ promise to eradicate poverty in India, Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh said here on Friday that over 7.5 crore people of the country have been lifted out of extreme deprivation during the last four and a half years of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.
Quoting a study of an international think tank, Mr. Singh said the same group had in 2016 estimated that over 12.5 crore people of India were living in extreme poverty and a survey this year has found that the number has shrunk to less than five crore Indians, proving that the NDA government’s schemes were giving better results.
Mr. Singh was addressing an election meeting at Kishore Nagar here under the Cuttack Sadar Assembly segment, a constituent of the Cuttack parliamentary constituency. He was campaigning for the party’s Lok Sabha candidate Prakash Mishra, a former Odisha Police DGP. Mr. Mishra was made the Director General of the CRPF soon after he was unceremoniously removed as the Odisha DGP after the 2014 twin elections in the State. Mr. Mishra also held key positions in the MHA’s internal security wing and was made an adviser to the Uttarakhand Governor after his retirement in June 2016.
Mocking the Congress, Mr. Singh said the party had been promising the eradication of poverty in India since the days of Jawaharlal Nehru. “Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi also talked about, and now Rahul Gandhi too is talking about it,” he said, adding that the Congress never wanted to eradicate poverty in the country.
