NEW DELHI: Dubbing the ruling-NDA government as ‘no data available’, the Congress on Wednesday alleged that the Centre is playing the game of “smoke-and-mirrors” with its Interim Budget.
Initiating the debate on the Budget in the Lok Sabha, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said that the government was about “all talk and no action” and failed miserably to address the crises plaguing the economy.
“It is high time that this election gives others an opportunity to show up their shallow rhetoric for what it is — all talk and no action,” he said.
Launching a broadside against the government, Tharoor said that it still believes in trickle-down economics.
“We believe in trickle-up: if our economy produces the things that people wish to consume at affordable prices, the common man will not only live better but will become a full participant in the economy,” he said. Countering the Finance Minister’s claims, Tharoor said that the government’s claims of freeing 25 crore people from multi-dimensional poverty in 10 years needs to be interrogated.
“We are in a statistical void and what we only have is the multidimensional poverty index of the Niti Aayog which is a new index that they have created and it cannot be compared with any past poverty numbers. “We absolutely have no basis for judging whether poverty has actually gone down as the finance minister claims... the NDA apparently stands for No Data Available,” he said.
Under the current dispensation ‘G’ “stands for governmental intrusion and tax terrorism, ‘D’ for demographic betrayal and ‘P’ for poverty continuing,” he said while referring to the GDP.
Tharoor added that a government under which a no-confidence motion is required to be moved before its leaders speak on vital issues including Manipur should refrain from claiming to be ‘the messiah of democracy, let alone its mother’.
“Combined with the disregard for states ...a skewed and centralising cooperative federalism, under which the states are meant to ‘co-operate’ but the Centre ‘operates’ as it pleases, the government has failed gravely on all the counts where it pats its own back,” Tharoor added.
Democracy is suffering through this government’s ‘arrogant contempt’ for institutions, Tharoor said, citing the suspension of 146 MPs during the last session.