NEW DELHI: "Did we take away onions, potatoes and tomatoes and store them in a bank," Congress today said as it took a dig at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over his remarks blaming the previous UPA regime for rising prices and claimed that "instead of good days, days of tears" had come after the Narendra Modi government took charge at the Centre.
"If they had to take the same steps as we did, then what was the need for a change of government. It is ridiculous,"
Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said in response to Jaitley's comment that decisions like the one hiking rail fares were taken when UPA had been in power.
Youth Congress chief Rajiv Satav also took a potshot at the government as he tweeted, "Tum Mujhe Vote Do, Main Tumhe Mehngai doonga (You give me votes, I will give you price rise). Who said to whom?."
At a Congress briefing, Sharma claimed that, apart from making excuses, the NDA government had taken no tangible steps to check rising prices. He also accused the NDA government of showing "callousness" in the matter.
He said that the minimum export price for onions was a measure from the UPA period and charged that the claim by NDA government about having introduced it was "false". Further, talking about the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, Sharma said it had been "truncated" and now includes only two instead of three members, namely Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Modi.
"Government has to come out with a plausible explanation for this mutilation of the ACC," Sharma said.
ACC, which finalises appointments of all senior bureaucrats, will now include only the Prime Minister and the Home Minister in a departure from the practice under the UPA government, which had also brought in the minister in-charge of the ministry concerned into the panel for selection of officials to their departments.
Sharma also alleged that the Prime Minister has "curtailed" the role of ministers.
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