You’ll have to hear me for 6 years: Amit Shah in RS

Someone who sells pakodas today, his progeny can become entrepreneurs tomorrow. Today a son of chaiwala is the PM of this nation. AMIT SHAH, BJP chief

NEW DELHI: In his debut speech in Parliament, BJP President Amit Shah lashed out at the Congress for criticising the NDA government’s economic policies and said that Kashmir is the safest it has been in 35 years.

In a 77-minute speech in Hindi, Shah defended the BJP’S record, even as he took a leaf out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speeches and lashed out at the opposition in general and the Congress in particular for corruption, dynastic rule, and the politics of appeasement.

Shah attacked the Congress for opposing the passage of the bill to set up the Other Backward Classes commission and the legislation to criminalize instant triple talaq, as he initiated the discussions on the motion of thanks on the President’s speech in Rajya Sabha on Monday. “If you agree, we can bring the triple talaq bill tomorrow,” he said.

Shah told Opposition MPS: “You will have to listen to me for the next six years.” With the treasury benches thumping their desks in approval and Modi looking on approvingly, Shah refuted the Congress’s criticism of GST as “Gabbar Singh Tax” and said that the increase in revenue from the new tax regime would pay for the “one rank, one pension” scheme and various pro-poor programmes of the government.

Opposition parties have used disruptions over the implementation of GST, its impact on small and medium enterprises, and 2016’s demonetisation exercise to criticise the government. They say that demonetisation resulted in massive job losses while the GST hit small enterprises.