BJP govt implementing Cong schemes recklessly, says Rahul

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday came down heavily on the BJP government at the Centre for “reckless implementation” of UPA programmes like the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and causing hardships to the common man.

Gandhi, who arrived on a three-day visit to his parliamentary constituency Amethi, attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he was only changing the nomenclature of Congressled UPA schemes and programmes and running them.

Addressing a farmers’ rally in his Amethi Lok Sabha constituency, he recalled how Modi had “ridiculed” the rural job scheme, MGNREGA, which was a Congress brainchild. “But Modi realized later what the MGNREGA meant for the common man and he began praising it. The Congress initiates programmes after consulting common people, taking their suggestions.

“But the BJP people don’t do that. Modi doesn’t consult anybody. For example, the Swachhta scheme. He suddenly thinks that India should be cleaned and without asking anyone will order everyone to take a broom and clean India,” he said.

The Congress leader said the GST was also a Congress initiative and the party-led government had come up with the tax reform after consulting people, including small traders and farmers.

He said the “wrong implementation” of the GST has caused several hardships to small traders and narrated how a shopkeeper, who also sells a mixture of dry fruits in small packets, told him he was in a quandary.