MODI POSITIONS SELF AS BEST BET FOR 2019

Banks’ bad debts in UPA were as high as 82 percent, reveals PM

In an angry outburst against the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday attacked its flawed "niyat" (intention) that divided the country and created problems in Andhra Pradesh by dividing its people through bifurcation of the state. He also accused the Grand Old Party of being corrupt, anti-Dalit and single family oriented.

The Congress and the Left members raised slogans throughout his 90-minute reply in the Lok Sabha to the discussion on the motion of thanks on the President's address.

At times the slogans were so loud that they drowned the Prime Minister's speech on television. The chorus was led by the Andhra parties and "Andhra ka wada kya hua?" rang loud and clear in the Lok Sabha for quite some time. This slogan was followed by others, including: "Jhootha bhashan bandh karo", "Jhuthe ashwasan bandh karo", Jumlabazi bandh karo" and "Jhootha dialoguebazi bandh karo".

And this remained so throughout the Prime Minister's speech. 'Main janta hun ki yeh aawaaz dabaane ki jo koshish hai woh nakaam rehne wali hai,' an exasperated PM Modi had to finally tell the Opposition.

Advising the Congress not to give him a tutorial in democracy, Modi charged that

the former had not cared two hoots for democracy, starting with the election of the first prime minister when 12 of the 15 Congress leaders voted for Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Yet, the leadership was assigned to Jawaharlal Nehru. Had Patel been the first PM, Pakistan would not have gobbled up a part of Kashmir, he said.

"You divided the country which had voted for you. You ruled the nation at a time when the Opposition was weak and there were no PILs, nor any NGOs to hail you," he said.

He went on to state that he was revealing for the first time what he had kept to himself about the precarious health of the banks, lest it leads to a collapse of the system. The NPA was as high as 82% of the banks' resources when he took over and not 36% as professed by the Congress-led UPA government, he said, asserting that the crisis in banks was its legacy "for which the nation will never pardon you."

He asserted: "NPA was your paap (vice)" that was not Rs 18 lakh crore, as all had believed, but as high as Rs 52 lakh crore, leaving hardly any money with the banks to lend.

Modi also took the Opposition to task for criticism of the way he has gone about setting various targets to be achieved by 2022 while his government is only up to 2019. "Your leader (late Rajiv Gandhi) could sell dreams of the 21st century in the 1980s while I am invoking 2022 only as an inspirational goal," he said.

On the criticism of his government on unemployment, the Prime Minister countered that around one crore jobs had been added in three-four years while 70 lakh new GPF (general provident fund) accounts were added in just one year because of the Centre's efforts. Are they not new jobs, he asked and noted that many were starting their own businesses.

He said the new generation is not begging for jobs and cited bureaucrats who had told him that their children are not looking for government jobs but want their own start-ups. "This is the new aspiration which my government is trying to promote with a score of schemes. Don't discourage them."

He mentioned that bank loans totalling Rs 4 lakh crore had been sanctioned to 10 crore youth, without any middleman or guarantor. Is it not employment, he asked.

The Prime Minister countered with a repartee Mallikarjun Kharge who had used a couplet from renowned Urdu poet Bashir Badr on Tuesday. Kharge had said: "Dushmani jamke karo, lekin yeh gunjaish rahe. Jab kabhi hum dost ban jayen to sharminda no ho."

Modi responded by saying that the Congress leader had omitted the first two lines from the poem, which said: "Jee bahut chahta hai sach bolein, kya karein hausla nahi hota."

He ridiculed the Congress leaders for harping on the same – that "hamaare jamaane me kya, kya hua." He said for decades, the Congress devoted all its energies to serving one family with its own 'dhun.' Interests of the nation were overlooked. Had you worked seriously, the nation would not have lagged behind many others that achieved freedom much later."