'Time For Oppn To Get Its Act Together': Tharoor As I.N.D.I.A Bloc Unity Threatens To Fall Apart
Tharoor further took a dig at Sitharam saying this year's budget speech was the shortest since he started following the budget.
New Delhi: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday criticised Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Interim Budget, saying it sounded more like the Modi government's final budget. He said that the BJP government has "completely run out of ideas."
Tharoor further took a dig at Sitharam saying this year's budget speech was the shortest since he started following the budget.
In an interview with PTI, Tharoor said, "It's not just an interim budget but their (BJP government) final budget, and there's no question about it. This is a government that has completely run out of ideas. They have essentially given us a whole rhetoric. It was only the shortest budget speech on records since I started following budget 15 years ago."
VIDEO | Union Budget 2024: "It's not just an interim budget but their (BJP government) final budget, and there's no question about it. This is a government that has completely run out of ideas. They have essentially given us a whole rhetoric. It was only the shortest budget… pic.twitter.com/bDjrq4dn0f
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) February 1, 2024
He also rejected the BJP's claims that the 2024 poll results are a foregone conclusion, saying "Picture abhi baki hai" (The film is not finished). Tharoor asserted there is still time for the opposition to get its act together.
"‘Picture abhi baaki hai’ (The film is not finished). Votes can’t be counted until they are cast and the votes will be cast when the time comes. There is still time for the opposition to get its act together,” he told PTI.
VIDEO | “‘Picture abhi baaki hai’ (The film is not finished). Votes can’t be counted until they are cast and the votes will be cast when the time comes. There is still time for the opposition to get its act together,” says Congress MP @ShashiTharoor.
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) February 1, 2024
(Full video is available on… pic.twitter.com/ESvhzxKBXg
In the interview, he also criticised Sitharaman for describing GDP as governance, development, and performance, and said that under this dispensation 'G' stands for governmental intrusion and tax terrorism, 'D' for demographic betrayal, and 'P' for poverty and rising inequality.
Responding to the government's assertion that it will come out with a white paper on the mismanagement of the economy before 2014 to draw lessons, Tharoor said they are going to do "very good selective number calculations".
"No one trust their numbers. Look at NITI Aayog that claimed that 24 crore people have been pulled out of poverty, they have completely changed all baselines to come up with a conclusion like this. In fact, the UPA government did pull out a 140 million people from poverty which is undisputed worldwide because their parameters were well-known," the former Union minister said.
VIDEO | “The UPA government in 10 years pulled 140 million or 14 crore people out from below the poverty line. It is undisputed the world over. Whereas this government (NDA) keeps shifting the baseline. We rank 111 out of 125 countries in the 2023 Global Hunger Index,” says… pic.twitter.com/URVrGKn2lJ
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) February 1, 2024
Tharoor termed the interim Union budget "disappointing" and said that he was startled that the issue of unemployment was completely missing from the finance minister's speech.
"Inflation, particularly of food items, has been so shocking that people at the bottom 20 per cent are unable to buy in the bazaar what they could buy a year or two ago. That is the lived reality of the ordinary Indian which is why the government wants them to vote out of pride for a Ram mandir or out of pride for bashing Pakistan on Balakot, Pulwama...that is what they did last time in 2019," he said in an interview at the PTI headquarters.
He further stated, "This time it is going to be Ram mandir and no doubt the Abu Dhabi mandir is going to be added to the mix. That frankly is not what governments are elected to do, governments are elected to improve the lot of the common people. Has this government done that? I would say on that particular yardstick, they get a failing grade."
He said that
"The BJP may be banking on people once again saying that 'doesn't matter that 'jeb mein paise nahi hain', we will vote for Ram Mandir'... Let us see that works or not. I am not willing to concede the election until it is over. I want to bring this message to people that it is your own economic reality that ought to be of utmost importance," he said.
The finance minister talking about foreign investment going up is simply not true, as foreign investment from a peak of 3.6 per cent of the GDP under the UPA has dropped to one per cent of the GDP, he said.
Tharoor said that 60 per cent of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have shut down in the last three years.
On Sitharaman's remarks that the saturation approach of covering all eligible people is secularism in action, Tharoor said, "I was bemused by her saying that the trinity of democracy, demography and diversity is going to be the calling card of India." "Demography, we have seen the betrayal of the youth of this country...Democracy, sadly the intimidation of the opposition has reached a new peak now with the arrest of a chief minister... What is the state of our democracy?" he said.
He added that India's diversity was one of the greatest strengths and was respected around the world. "Today you pick up any newspaper abroad and all you now read about is assault on the minorities... whether it is Christian churches being attacked during Christmas time, whether it is the repeated otherisation of Muslims whether it is bulldozers being unleashed somehow only against Muslim-owned shops and so on. There is an ongoing assault on our diversity," he alleged.
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