New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday reminded Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not a word in his lengthy speech on the demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) he used to pride about. Congress spokesman Manish Tewari taunted Modi for also quietly forgetting “Achchhe din” (good days) in his 2014 promise and dropping Sardar Patel from his address to the BJP national council, may be because of the realisation that he too was a colleague of Jawaharlal Nehru and other Congress leaders engaged in the freedom struggle. Either Prime Minister Modi’s memory is fading or he is on a hunt for new narratives like the 10% reservation to the poor and other schemes to let people forget all those old promises, sorry Jumlas of 2014, he asked. What happened to the demonetisation he had been holding as the biggest achievement of his government, Tewari asked, pointing out that no government in past 70 years had harassed all 25 crore people of India as he did with his “note-bandi.”
He said the government had celebrated imposition of the GST as a celebration with a midnight function in Parliament as another big achievement and ducked it completely in his address. Tewari said Modi is now shifting all goals, many already shifted to 2022, and that includes 2 crore jobs a year that he quietly skipped as instead of 10 crore jobs in five years, India lost more than one crore jobs in just last one year.
He told Modi that the 2019 poll fight is not between “majboot sarkar” and “majboor sarkar” as he tried to paint. “2019 fight is between dictatorship and democracy, Bhashan and Prashashan (speeches and governance) and it is going to be a test between Jumlas (gimmicks) qua an impeccable track record of service that the Congress has delivered over the years.”
In claiming that the alliances will only provide a “majboor” (weak) government, Tewari said Modi has forgotten that he was abusing late Atal Behari Vajpayee who too had run a government of the alliances. “And, what about your own government of 35 allies that BJP president Amit Shah hailed today?” Tewari said Modi will have to explain why the farmers are agitating in almost every state if his government is so sensitive in resolving their issues. Why are they not getting even a reasonable price for their crops, forget about the bogus minimum support price (MSP)?
