New Delhi: In the same week that Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched two blistering attacks on the Congress in either House of Parliament, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also went on the offensive against the opposition party Friday, referring to the Congress and its earlier regimes as “Rahu kaal” (inauspicious period) and likening its constant criticism of the government to the call of “frogs during the rainy season”.
Sitharaman was replying to the discussion on the Union Budget in the Rajya Sabha.
In her reply, Sitharaman attacked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and blamed the party for “misrule”, “inflation” and a “slowdown of the economy”.
Speaking on matters of MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), inflation, unemployment and poverty reduction, the finance minister targeted the past UPA governments, former finance minister P. Chidambaram and the Gandhi family.
Referring to Congress leader Kapil Sibal’s remark Wednesday that “India is not in Amrit kaal (time of plenty) but Rahu kaal (time of darkness) since 2014”, Sitharaman said, “Rahu kaal is when a sitting PM was about to meet the US President and a bill he cleared was torn up.” She was referring to Rahul Gandhi’s opposition in 2013 to an ordinance passed by the Manmohan Singh government.
“Rahu kaal is what produces G23, it is where the Congress party is,” she said, alluding to the 23 Congress leaders who had wanted reform in the party. “Senior leaders from the party are leaving…. That is Rahu kaal. Congress is in a miserable condition because of Rahu kaal,” she continued. “Ours is Amrit kaal. Rahu kaal was thrown at me,” she emphasised.
Countering a Congress member who alleged that all government decisions were taken at Nagpur (where the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is headquartered), Sitharaman said, “This comes from a party where there is no party democracy and policies were decided at 10 Janpath (residence of Sonia Gandhi) and announced at 7 Lok Kalyan Marg (the prime minister’s residence)…”
“And one cannot forget that one general secretary tore a Bill in public. The respected PM Manmohan Singh was going to meet the US President after two hours. Is that remote control or what is that?” Sitharaman said.
“From Gati Shakti (multi-modal connectivity) to use of drone technology in agriculture, we are setting the agenda for the next 25 years. If we don’t have a vision for the next 25 years, we will end up like 65 years of Congress rule, when everything was built for one particular family,” she said.
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‘MGNREGA was infested with ghost accounts’
On MGNREGA, Sitharaman said, “It was an act because of them (UPA government), but I would like to say that MGNREGA’s misuse was also because of them. MGNREGA was infested with ghost accounts, its misuse was also to their credit.”
“It was demand-driven programme to ease out employment during lean period of agriculture… It is one thing to create scheme, it is another thing to misuse a scheme. We have allocated record allocation in MGNREGA, and if needed, it will be enhanced,” she said.
On the Opposition’s charges of high inflation induced by the Covid pandemic, Sitharaman said, “Since 2014, PM Modi has ensured that we keep inflation contained… Every time we brought it back to being within six per cent… Our management is robust.”
“Highest inflation this country endured was from 2010-14, when retail inflation was over 9 per cent in 22 out of 28 months,” she said.
“We managed to keep inflation at 6.2 per cent when the economy contracted during Covid…the UPA government and our learned former finance minister could not handle a lesser crisis,” Sitharaman added.
On unemployment and reduction of poverty, she told the House, “The PLI (Production-Linked Incentive) scheme will generate employment for 60 lakh people. There is Rs 7 lakh crore public expenditure on infrastructure, this will create more jobs.”
The finance minister said according to the latest periodic labour survey, urban unemployment in January-March quarter in 2021-22 had declined to the pre-pandemic level of 9 per cent from a high of 20.8 per cent during the first wave.
“In November, we saw a net addition of 13.9 lakh in the EPFO (Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation), an increase of 109 per cent over the previous year and highest since 2017,” Sitharaman said.
‘Like frogs during the rainy season’
Sitharaman dismissed Rahul Gandhi’s accusation of rising income inequality under the Modi government and “two Indias”, one for the rich and one for the rest, as well as the charge that the Union Budget had nothing for the poor, by referring to a 2013 statement of Gandhi.
“What is the poor that you are talking about? The former (Congress) president said poverty does not mean the scarcity of food, money or material things. If one possesses self-confidence, then one can overcome it,” she said.
“Frogs emerge to speak during the rainy season,” Sitharaman said, quoting a saying in Tamil. “Likewise, a few people emerge to speak like frogs out of habit,” she added, dismissing the charges.
Not disconnected from ‘ground realities’
Answering Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader Dayanidhi Maran, who had on 7 February wondered if Sitharaman wasn’t present in the Lok Sabha during the Budget discussions due to her “not being elected”, and if that had kept her away from ground realities, the finance minister said she was elected to the Rajya Sabha, just like former prime minister Manmohan Singh.
“Was he disconnected from ground realities?” she asked.
During the discussions on the Budget, when P. Chidambaram had pointed out the figures cited in the Economic Survey were different from those in the Budget speech, Sitharaman said he was misleading the House, and that as former finance minister, he knows the reason for the difference in data.
“Economic survey draws its source from one particular set of data, while the government looks at advance estimate which comes just before the Budget. The advance estimate which could not have factored in Omicron (the third Covid wave) have been added, so there is some variation in numbers. Sources of calculation are different, so there is difference in numbers in Budget speech and Survey,” she explained.
‘Want privatisation or not?’
The finance minister also attacked the Congress for its internal confusion on disinvestment, pointing out that while Rahul Gandhi spoke against it, previous Congress and UPA governments had acted in the opposite manner.
“I want to ask the Congress, do you want privatisation or not? You started it in 1991, you take credit for it, now you speak in a different tone,” she said, also alluding to the 1993 Malhotra Committee that looked into reforms in LIC and recommended privatisation of the insurance sector.
“What explains the over Rs 1lakh crore disinvestment under UPA?” she further asked.
Underlining the gravity of the Covid crisis, when the economy contracted, Sitharaman claimed that the government had handled it much better, unlike what the UPA government had done 2008-09.
(Edited by Saikat Niyogi)
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