BLUFF ANNOUNCEMENT: JAITLEY

NEWDELHI: BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Monday slammed Rahul Gandhi’s promise of giving ₹72,000 per year to the poorest families as a “bluff announcement” and yet another Congress bid to “cheat” the poor, and asserted the Modi government was already giving one-and-a-half times more money to them.

The Finance Minister told reporters in New Delhi that the Congress has a history of cheating the poor and misleading the country in the name of removing poverty as it only gave them slogans but not the tools and resources. “Merely slogans and statements will not remove poverty. It will go by providing resources which the Modi government has by giving the poor houses, gas connections, roads... You (Congress) have cheated the poor many times and are trying to do so again. But people will not fall in trap this time,” he said.

Jaitley, who wrote a Facebook post and later addressed a press conference, said Gandhi did not give any detail of the scheme and his party leaders have said it will not affect fiscal discipline which, he added, means that the existing schemes will be repackaged.

The government led by PM Narendra Modi has been giving away ₹5.34 lakh crore to the poor families, he said.

“What sort of favour will they (Congress) do to the poor by giving them ₹3.6 lakh crore? We are already giving them one-and-a-half times more,” he said, noting that the 20 per cent poorest families are already getting ₹1.06 lakh each under various government schemes against ₹72,000 promised by the Congress. “If the Congress Party’s announcement is tested on simple arithmetic, ₹72,000 for five crore families works out to be ₹3.6 lakh crore, which is less than 2/3rd of what is being given (by the current government)- A bluff announcement,” he said.In a Facebook post titled ‘Is PM Narendra Modi already giving to poor much more than what the Congress promises?’ he accused the Congress of “betraying” for decades.