Former PCC chief and senior Congress leader Ponnala Lakshmaiah ridiculed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that previous governments drafted the Union Budget with an eye on their vote bank and elections.
At a press conference here on Friday, he said that the Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was indeed divisive with an eye on States going for elections and neglecting all the others. “Modi Ji, either you are playing ignorant or blind to what was promulgated in the Budget. Have you not doled out ₹3.5 lakh crore to election bound States like Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala in the Budget?”
Mr. Lakshmaiah said from 2004 to 2014, the GDP witnessed a rapid growth, a fact which neither BJP nor any economist worth his salt could deny. “In terms of dollars, the income of an average Indian which stood 628 USD had grown to 1596 USD during the Congress rule with an average growth 15% per annum. But under BJP, the rise is just 3.3% in six years,” he said.
The former minister said that the Budget had proposed to put the country on sale. “You have proposed to sell the Vizag Steel Plant to your cronies, which was the right of Telugu people. Is selling PSUs the only solution to earn revenue for the government? Is not selling PSUs like LIC, and Air India a glaring example of a bankrupt governance,” he asked the Prime Minister.
He said the Congress initiated many schemes and policies for the upliftment and betterment of the farming community. For example, it set up the Nizam Sugar Factory for sugarcane farmers in Nizamabad, while Jinning mills were set up in Jangaon area to facilitate cotton farmers to sell their product. Now Mr. Modi is asking them to sell their products in Delhi and Kashmir?
