The Congress on Friday hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who during his Varanasi visit attacked the Opposition party for doing nothing for the welfare of the people of the country. The Congress said Modi should come out from his selective amnesia and acknowledge the fact that UPA Government had opened 24 crore bank accounts as part of Congress’ initiative of financial inclusion growth.
“Modi again chose to indulge in false propaganda of claiming that he enabled the poor to open bank accounts. He claimed that he had opened 18 crore bank accounts and taunted the previous UPA regime saying that had we bothered about the poor, we would have enabled them to open bank accounts. The Congress advises the PM to come out of selective amnesia and acknowledge that 24 crore accounts were opened by the previous Government under the Financial Inclusion scheme called ‘Swabhiman’. All that the PM has done is rename our ‘Swabhiman’ scheme as ‘Jan Dhan Scheme,” said AICC General Secretary Shakeel Ahmad.
The party said Modi has simply become an expert at renaming schemes from our era and launching them like the magical conversion of Swabhiman into Jan Dhan; Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana as Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana, the Accelerated Irrigation Programme as Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana and the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission and PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) as Shyama Prasad Mookerjee RURBAN Mission, to name a few.
The Congress also took a swipe on Modi by stating that the constituency which the PM represents, ranks 418 in the Swachh Bharat rankings. Ahmad also asked the PM to give an account to the people of India as to why after more than 900 ceasefire violations from Pakistan where scores of civilians have died, Pakistan is blatantly killing Indian fishermen near Dwarka in Gujarat.