BJP manifesto a bunch of lies: Congress

The Congress on Monday called the BJP manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls a bunch of lies and said the ruling party had not mentioned anything about jobs, goods and services tax (GST), black money and demonetisation.

Senior party leaders, including Ahmed Patel and Randeep Surjewala among others, also released a document that detailed 125 ‘failed promises’ by the BJP after five years in government.

The Congress rubbished the BJP’s claim of doubling farmers’ income and pointed out it would take 28 years to do so at the current rate of agricultural growth.

It said the government earmarked only five paisa per girl child under the ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ (Save the girl child programme) and claimed that the government debt during Mr. Modi’s tenure grew by ₹27 lakh crore

Mr. Surjewala said no BJP leader, whether it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi or party president Amit Shah, Ministers Rajnath Singh or Sushma Swaraj, spoke on these crucial issues.

“It is going lies versus nyay (justice). They should bring out a maafi nama(letter of apology)….People have now realised that their promises remain only on their website as they adopt gimmicks to stay in power. Sometimes, he [Mr. Modi] becomes chowkidaar (watchman), chaiwala, kaamdar (toiler), fakir (ascetic) but never fulfils his promises,” said Mr. Patel.

Mr. Surjewala questioned the BJP on the promises made in 2014 and said that it’s time for the BJP to wind up its government since people have seen through it.

“You promised two crore jobs every year, which translates to 10 crore jobs in five years. In reality, during these five years, the number of jobs has actually reduced by 4.7 crore. And it’s not something that I am saying, but what has been said by the government’s own NSSO (National Sample Survey Organisation) data,” he told reporters.

The Congress leader also said that the BJP had not brought back ₹80 lakh crore of black money and deposited ₹15 lakh in each citizen’s bank account as it had promised.

“The reality was that Lalit Modi, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya looted ₹1 lakh crore of the taxpayer’s money and fled the country right under Mr. Modi’s nose.”