Our Bureau
New Delhi
The Congress has regretted that no better arrangement has been still made to enable the migrant labourers reach home, asking the government to look at the shortcoming because of which more than 8 crore are still stranded.
Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma on Sunday told a digital press conference that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam is burdening everyone from the farmer to the street vendor with loans, wondering whether she knows the meaning of the financial package or stimulus, while Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said the needy got only 13 zeroes 0000000000000 instead the Rs20 lakh-crore package promised by the Prime Minister on Tuesday.
It became quite clear after her fifth press conference that the government has no thinking on how to bring the Indian economy back on track, Anand Sharma said asserting the self-reliant Bharat packages declared by them are worth Rs3.22 lakh crore and not Rs20 lakh-crore and it is only 1.6% of India’s GDP and not 10% as claimed by Modi. He challenged both the PM and the FM to disprove him on numbers.
Sharma said the Congress had welcomed the Rs20 lakh-crore relief package announced by the PM on Tuesday for encouragement to those hit by the virus and lockdowns, but what the FM doled out is only loans that cannot be accepted as any economic package as the government wants the victims to earn and repay the loans for the economic revival instead of extending a helping hand.
The package announced by her is “anti-poor, anti-farmer, anti-labour, anti-shopkeeper, anti-salaried class, anti-MSMEs & anti-India,” Surjewala said stressing that “India gets trickery, fakery, quackery” while senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh tweeted bogus claims by PM stand exposed as so far loan and liquidity totals Rs16.6 lakh-crore and subsidy Rs3.2 lakh-crore, stressing these include old announcements and programmes and “if there was a fraudulent package, this is one.”
Sharma said the government is misleading the people in the name of economic package and instead announcing just loans the beneficiary will have to repay with interest.
He flayed the FM for talking of ration to the migrants, saying it is not a favour but their right. He said crores lost jobs during the pandemic, factories were closed and what the MSME got is burden of another load of loans dished out to them instead of a financial help to enable them to pay wages to their workers.
Sharma asked the government to apologise for abandoning its poor citizens and violating their fundamental and legal rights. The govt has no answer on plight of migrants forced to walk on roads due to lack of planning, he said, asserting that nobody would start walking for hundreds of kilometres if trains are available aplenty as the Finance Minister pretended.
He said she made so many announcement which have nothing to do with the poor, farmers, labourers and small MSMEs as they are seeking relief. They are all citizens of India and not in the need of any compassion (daya). He said many reforms have been announced but they are only to rail back the collapsing system and industries but nothing done for the needy. “Until the poor and labourers get money directly in their hands, we do not accept the announcements as stimulus. Benefit to the farmers is not part of any package as it relates to the PM’s announcement before the elections last year,” he said.
On the monthly pension of Rs500 to old women, he said only 21% women have the Jandhan accounts, he said money should have been given through MGNREGA to benefit more women.
FINANCE MINISTER INSULTED MIGRANT LABOURERS: CONGRESS
Our Bureau
New Delhi
The Congress on Sunday flayed FM Nirmala Sitharaman for rubbing salt in the wounds instead of applying balm of relief. It asked her not to think the workers are helpless and apologise for insulting them at her press conference earlier in the day.
“You think their helplessness is a drama. You think blisters in feet from walking bare feet is a drama. Waking without food or water is seen by you as a drama. Death of 135 labourers is seen by you as a drama,” Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said, asserting Rahul Gandhi had gone to meet the labour in Delhi waking to Jhansi on foot to share their pain. “If sharing the pain is a crime, we shall do it again and again to wake up the blind and deaf govt,” he said, adding it was a drama when Modi washed feet of labour for votes and when promising air travel to those wearing the flip flops.
