Taking a jibe at Congress-led government at the Centre over poverty figures, the BJP alleged the issue was brought up to divert people’s attention from UPA’s massive failures both on the social and economic fronts.
Speaking to reporters here on Sunday, senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu lashed out at the Congress and said people fail to understand the Planning Commission’s criteria for fixing the poverty line. “It is making a mockery of the living conditions of the poor and they are using a methodology that they themselves accept as not reflecting the ground reality,” he remarked.
On one hand, it says poverty has declined to 21.9 percent in 2011-12 from 37.2 percent in 2004-05, and on the other, it says 67 percent of the people are being covered under the Food Security Act. If poverty is declining, why so many people are being covered it, he asked.
“The government keeps on giving a new definition of poverty. Sometimes, it raises the number of poor and sometimes its lowers it when it suits its requirements,” he remarked.
The prime minister is the chairman of the Planning Commission and he has to tell the nation how such figures have been made, he said.
Coming to BJP campaign committee chairman Narendra Modi being the target of opposition parties, the senior BJP leader said pseudo secularist parties are targeting Modi to contain his rising popularity. Whatever these parties do, it will be difficult for them to stop Modi as the people of the country are not ready to believe these parties as they have lost credibility.