After Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday announced an ambitious minimum income guarantee scheme for the poor, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley accused him of “bluffing the people”. The scheme is similar to the previous unsuccessful attempts by the party to end poverty and the devil lies in the detail, he added.
When tested on simple arithmetic, Rs 72,000 offered is less than two-thirds of the current direct benefit transfer (DBT) provided by the Modi government, which averages Rs 1.068 lakh annually, he said.
He said that the Modi government allocated Rs 1.84 lakh crore this year under right to food act and other subsidies including Rs 75,000 crore in PM Kisan Nidhi, Rs 20,000 crore in Ayushman Bharat that adds to about Rs 5.34 lakh crore in annual allocation.
“This announcement is an admission of the fact that neither Indiraji nor her son and certainly not the UPA Government controlled by her descendants, was able to remove poverty,” he also said.
He stated that the Congress always promised ‘Garibi Hatao’ but never actually worked on it.
The Congress party was in power for more than two-thirds of the period since the ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan was given, but failed to end the poverty during the period, he added.
The finance minister also said that Indira Gandhi’s economics was not about increasing production and generating wealth, but only about redistribution of poverty.