The Congress on Thursday dubbed the two years regime of the Modi Government as “fraudulently dynamic”, saying that after two years, this BJP-led Central Government has nothing to show but “empty promises and gimmicks”. The main Opposition party also dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a public debate over the issue and maintained that the NDA Government was “surviving because of newspapers and news channels and through advertisements.”
leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, Congress leader in lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, former Union Minister Kapil Sibal and AICC chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala targeted the Prime Minister over a variety of issues, including handling of economy, employment and foreign policy.
“The Modi Government is not visible on the ground… It is surviving because of newspapers and news channels…. Government has been thriving on advertisements,” Azad said taking a dig at the Prime Minister and his way of functioning at a time when it has unleashed a publcity blitzkrieg on its achievements.
While Sibal raised questions as to who is driving the foreign policy of India, whether it was the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Foreign Minister or the National Security Adviser, Azad said the Government’s foreign policy has been “consistently inconsistent,” vis-à-vis China & Pakistan. Sibal recalled how the two neighbouring countries have together acted against New Delhi’s interests.
Scaling up the attack on Government’s handling of Pakistan issue, Sibal said the BJP, when in Opposition, used to ask why Congress was writing love letters to Pakistan. The ruling party should answer why it invited to Pathankot a team from Pakistan. He was referring to the visit of Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team to probe Pathankot terror attack.
Azad said that while there is a major agricultural distress, Government has done nothing to help farmers. Sibal alleged that the Prime Minister toured various countries of the world, but did not reach out to the farmer. The Modi Government was “fraudulently dynamic and dynamically fraudulent,” said Sibal. Sibal said that a survey in Varanasi, Prime Minister’s home constituency, showed that 51 per cent women were not happy with his working.
In a power-point presentation, the party took a jibe at achchhe din (good days) slogan of Modi in the run up to 2014 lok Sabha polls, saying people of India fell for Modi’s “web of deceit” woven around development and now waiting for three more years to put behind the bure din(bad days) of the Modi regime behind.
It said that people who gave Modi a sweeping mandate in 2014 are “bewildered and confused” as job growth, industrial output and exports are all plunging.
Noting that drought, rural distress and Government’s “apathy” were severely affecting farmers, it accused the Prime Minister of “stabbing” the farmers by zero increase in Minimum Support Price. The party said that price rise was hitting the kitchen budget and cited sharp hike in price of pulses.
Dubbing as an “abject flop” the Prime Minister’s pet ‘Make in India’ programme, the Congress said, “Babbar Sher (the lion logo of Make in India) has been mewing.”
“Democracy has been shamelessly subverted. No cooperative federalism is left,” it said, alluding to recent happenings in Congress-ruled Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
In the backdrop of some senior Ministers having called Modi “God’s gift to India”, Surjewala said, “Modi stuti (praising Modi) has become the conduct and character of this Government. One compares him to God and the other to messiah. We ask Modi to get down from the height of arrogance.”