Congress has condemned Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making “several false and misleading” statements including a jibe that the previous UPA Government copied programmes of the Vajpayee Government. “Wonder what is the provision for action against a person nothing less than PM for making false and misleading speech in Rajya Sabha,” said AICC spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi. He claimed that it’s not the UPA but Modi-led NDA Government which is a ‘copycat’ regime engaged in renaming UPA’s schemes.
When asked whether the party was contemplating moving the Privileges Committee against the PM, Singhvi who himself is a member of Rajya Sabha said, “If legally found admissible, why will action not be taken”. “We would have excused if any other leader and not the PM had said this.....He has compared apples with oranges, gold with dirt”, Singhvi said. “The Prime Minister had taken liberties with truth and has made several false and misleading statements in the Rajya Sabha while claiming that Congress-led Government had copied programmes of the first NDA Government led by Vajpayee,” he said.
Modi in his speech in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday had taken potshots at Congress saying how will they accept the role of somebody else in development, when they do not give credit to anybody else even for the freedom struggle. Countering Modi’s remarks, Singvhi said that the idea concept and schemes of Congress-led UPA started before 1998 when the NDA came to power for the first time. Giving instances, Singhvi said the BJP had talked about a multi-purpose identity card way back in the 1999 manifesto along with a national register of citizens and had repeated it in its 2009 Manifesto.
“But the Card which is now known as Aadhar became a reality after it was listed in the 2004 UPA Manifesto and the first tranche of the cards were handed over in May 2007. Is it fair for the PM to mislead the HouseIJ Is it not that he has been economical with truthIJ” he asked. Besides, he said that the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan may have been started by Vajpapyee government but it was “nothing but the District Primary Education Programme” started by the Congress government in 1993-94. He said later the Congress dispensation gave Constitutional entitlement to Right to education. As regards Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), Singhvi said that the genesis of it was in Malhotra Committee report of 1994. A regulator was set up by government of Congress, but it was an interim regulator.