Even as Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi refrained from making any political statement on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech, the party’s other leaders went all out to attack the Prime Minister (PM) for evading several crucial issues.
On Saturday, Sonia Gandhi unfurled the national flag at the AICC headquarters. However, she and Rahul Gandhi refused to comment on the PM’s I-Day speech saying, “today is not the day for politics.”
However, Congress leaders felt that the PM did not touch upon important issues pertaining to terrorism, foreign policy vis-a-vis Pakistan and unemployment in his I-Day speech.
Former Defence Minister AK Antony on Saturday criticised Modi for going back on his commitment on One Rank, One Pension.
“In the Budget of February 2014, the Government announced that it is accepting OROP and it will be implemented on April 1, 2014 onwards with retrospective effect. Our Government announced OROP and we took all the decisions to implement it. It was a question of completing certain formalities for calculating individual pension. After 15 months, no less than the person like the Prime Minister saying we are accepting it in principle. It is going back. It is a total disappointment for the ex-servicemen community,” said Antony while reacting to the Modi’s comments on OROP.
Other Congress leaders also alleged that the schemes listed by Modi in his speech were those started by the UPA Government. “What new thing has he saidIJ He has talked of two-three schemes, but I am sorry to say that those schemes were started by the Congress party during the UPA Government,” said leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad. While former Coal Minister Shriprakash Jaiswal said: “Why does the Prime Minister not tell that the coal auction process was started by the UPA Government.”
Taking a dig at Jan Dhan scheme, Congress leader Manish Tewari alleged there was an “extortion paradigm” being set in place that money would be taken from the poorest of the poor and would be handed over to capitalists through the banking system.
The Congress also accused PM for having different definitions of corruption when dealing with political opponents and when with for his own leaders. “I don’t know what the Prime Minister’s or BJP’s definition of corruption is. There is one definition which they had for their political opponents and there is one definition which he has for his own people,” said Anand Sharma, party’s deputy leader in Rajya Sabha.
Former Minister in PMO V Narayanasamy alleged that the CBI was favouring BJP leaders and closing cases against them. “After BJP Government came to power, all cases against BJP and RSS workers are being closed. The CBI is supporting BJP. This is not good for the country,” he said.
“We kept asking that if you want to break the logjam in Rajya Sabha, let the Prime Minister come and explain the steps he is planning to take or he has taken on the corruption scams which centred around lalit Modi and disclosures which came on it and Vyapam. He did not show up there and has not opened his mouth. Suddenly on August 15 he says there is no corruption. Nobody is going to believe him,” said Ambika Soni. She also questioned why he did not talk about terrorism or express sorrow at the death of innocent people in Gurdaspur and Udhampur terror attacks.
Echoing her views RPN Singh said: “The PM visits two nations every month. Why didn’t he say anything on foreign policy, terrorism or our relations with Pakistan, which he has only talked about during elections.”