Telecom expert Sam Pitroda on Wednesday defended the Congress government crediting it for “phenomenal work” carried out over the last 10 years. While admitting that the government did make mistakes, he said that corruption has been made an “agenda” in the wake of the Lok Sabha polls.
“Not everything we did in the last decade was right. I own up to the mistakes. But mistakes happened because we did something,” said the Prime Minister’s Advisor on Public Information Infrastructure.
Mr. Pitroda was speaking in Mumbai at an interactive session organised by Gurduas Kamat and Murli Deora of the Congress party. He said that the failure of the Congress government was that it was unable to communicate the decisions to the lowest level. “There may have been a failure of implementation and a failure of communication. People should have been taken into consideration while implementing the Food Security Bill or NREGA,” he said.
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Mr. Pitroda said that the ongoing “noise” is not just about an election, but it is about the core idea of India. “I am very concerned that we are going far from the concept of India that was envisaged by Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore, Subhashchandra Bose. At the time, importance was given to democracy, inclusion, concern for minority and poor, development on our own terms, equity and freedom. There is a difference between building a company and building a nation, especially in a country with so much diversity,” said Mr. Pitroda. He said that an organised campaign was being run with the media “telling a lot of lies.”
“It reminds me of the campaign before the 1989 election where everyone said Rajiv Gandhi was corrupt and the Bofors scam became a big deal. It was a big lie. Mr. Gandhi lost the election and was killed later,” said Mr. Pitroda who was Mr. Gandhi’s advisor at the time.