Government is preparing a list of issues pertaining to the UPA government to take on the Congress.
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley with BJP MPs after attending the party’s parliamentary board meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday PTI
Minutes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh for his speech in Lok Sabha in response to Rahul Gandhi’s tirade against the government, Union ministers went on a no-holds- barred diatribe against the Congress.
At the meeting of the BJP’s parliamentary party on Tuesday morning, Modi, in a brief speech, is understood to have said that though he did not hear Singh’s reply he was told that he had made a good speech. The minister had countered Gandhi saying that it was the Congress which had looted farmers for ten years.
However, Gandhi’s sharp attack on the Modi government dubbing it as a “suit-boot wali sarkar” has left some MPs of the BJP upset that the ruling side was not aggressive enough in its response, according to sources. The MPs were of the view that they could have hit back reminding the Congress vice-president of his 56-day break. Parliamentary affairs minister Venkaiah Naidu told them that it was not the government’s culture to make personal attacks, sources said.
Government is preparing a list of issues pertaining to the UPA government to take on the Congress.
The chagrin of the treasury benches over Gandhi’s speech, the essence of which was to dub the government as anti-farmer, reflected in the statements made by union ministers on Tuesday. Naidu, who had a difficult time pacifying the agitated party members in the House when Gandhi was speaking on Monday, took on the Congress on Tuesday. Accusing the Opposition party of spreading lies on the land acquisition bill, he dubbed the Opposition charges against the government on issuing ordinances as “the devil quoting scriptures”. The government has cited precedence of Ordinance being promulgated and re-promulgated in Congress regimes.
The minister said the Congress record was worse as 456 ordinances were issued in 50 years. Of these, 77 were issued during the time of Jawaharlal Nehru and 77 when Indira Gandhi was prime minister. The United Front also issued 77 during its two-year rule. He also reminded the Congress of the emergency saying it had murdered democracy.
Unleashing an unrelenting attack on the Congress, Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the Opposition was trying to make a lie the truth. “We are with the farmers and the poor of this country. We have promised to work for their welfare and we will not go back on our word,' Naqvi said.
Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad retaliated to Gandhi’s jibe of “suit-boot wali sarkar” by saying that this government was better than the “suit case sarkar”.
The battle over who was more pro-farmer is likely to intensify when the government takes up the land acquisition bill. However, the government is likely to take up other legislations like GST and Black Money before it takes up the contentious land bill.
No comments:
Post a Comment