BENGALURU: Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah on Saturday released a booklet in Kannada ‘Modi eight, blunders one hundred and eight’ delineating the series of blunders allegedly committed under prime minister Narendra Modi’s leadership during his tenure.
Siddaramaiah’s release was timed in a way when the BJP national executive meeting was underway at Hyderabad, and even sought reply to his queries from the meeting. He told media persons that Modi-led NDA government has failed in all terms including managing the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Country’s financial situation is in doldrums as the borrowing has reached Rs 155 lakh crore until March 2022, a hike of Rs 102 lakh crore in eight years. Until 2014, it was 53.11 lakh crores. A debt of Rs 1.7 lakh is on every citizen,” he claimed.
“Despite failing to fulfil the 2014 Lok Sabha poll promises, they have publicised it as a success. But promises like bringing black money stashed in foreign banks, alleviation of poverty and doubling income of the farmers are yet to be fulfilled. “The BJP won the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by diverting the attention of the people towards Pulwama and Balakote incidents, he claimed. Of the 92 crore electorate, 22.9 crore have voted for them which they have projected as the entire country,” he said. He listed out eight blunders allegedly committed by the government including demonetisation, disinvestment of PSUs, unemployment, anti-farm laws and unscientific implementation of GST.
Union minister for coal, mines and parliamentary affairs Pralhad Joshi gave a rebuttal and termed the booklet a bunch of lies. “With many scam, the UPA government had forgotten the security of the country and pushed into the whirlpool of debts. Modi, through subsidies, had brought the administration back on to track,” he claimed.
Joshi listed out the schemes Modi has introduced including the Jeevanjyotibhim where 49.95 lakh registered people claimed Rs 741.42 crore while 1.1 crore claimed Rs 144.12 crore under Surakshabima schemes adding that the Atal pension scheme covered 22.06 lakh beneficiaries.
Taking a dig at the Congress for the content on the back page of the booklet which says “Congress not alone a party, but history of country’s freedom struggle”, Joshi tweeted “Millions of fighters sacrificed their lives for India’s Freedom. Congress, which pretends to mean ‘history of freedom struggle’, has done a gross insult to the fighters of this country and is trying to distort true history”.