New Delhi: A day after Sonia Gandhi termed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promises as “dramebaazi” at the Congress plenary, former PM Manmohan Singh too on Sunday found fault with the "tall promises" made by Modi. In particular, he questioned the two crore jobs that were promised to youth during the 2014 election.
“When Modi ji was campaigning he made lots of tall promises, those promises have not been fulfilled. He said we will provide 2 crore jobs, we have not seen even 2 lakh jobs,” said Manmohan Singh, reminding the PM about the promise.
In 2014, the BJP came to power promising 10 million jobs a year. But there has been little on the ground.
At the 84th plenary session of the Congress, Singh described the government's demonetisation move as "ill-considered" and GST as "hastily implemented".
"The BJP-led government messed up the Indian economy. The ill-considered demonetisation and hastily implemented GST have destroyed small scale enterprises," he said.
Singh also dismissed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comment about farmers' incomes being doubled.
"Modi said farmers' income will be doubled in six years. It is a 'jumla'-type (rhetorical) statement unlikely to be achieved," he said addressing the session.
In its three-year action plan released in August 2017, Niti Aayog highlighted under-employment as a major concern. It noted that “not unemployment, but severe under-employment is the main problem facing the country” and that “what is needed is the creation of high-productivity, high-wage jobs”.
Recently, in a television interview, PM Modi said even selling pakodas is a form of employment as the person earns Rs 200 at the end of the day.
The opposition was quick to denounce this suggestion. Senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram slammed the government for its ‘wild claims’ on job creation, and said that if selling ‘pakodas’ counts as job, begging should also be considered a job.
Make in India, envisaged as the flagship programme to increase the contribution of manufacturing sector from 16% to 25 % of GDP, was expected to generate quality employment in private sector and defence sector. But as government moves into the last financial year, the ‘Make-in-India’ programme has failed to take off as planned. There are hardly any major defence manufacturing projects that have kicked off.
On Saturday, Sonia Gandhi said the use of slogans like sabka saath, sabka vikas by PM Modi was just a trick to grab power.
"The slogans of 'sab ka saath, sab ka vikas' and 'na khaoonga, na khaane doonga' are only and only dramebazi (drama) and a trick to grab power," she said, referring to Modi's promises of inclusive development and corruption-free governance.
Asserting that the UPA government achieved a "lot" under then Congress president Sonia Gandhi's guidance, Singh exuded confidence that the plenary session would chalk out the future path for the country and the party would play an important role.
"India stands at the crossroads. We have opportunities, but we also have challenges. The Congress party will provide a new pathway to chalk out the future of our country," said Manmohan Singh.