New Delhi:) BJP leader and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday asserted that mere slogans and high sounding statements on pro-poor schemes cannot eradicate poverty.

“The Congress has deceived India with slogans and schemes,” said Mr Jaitley hours after Congress president Rahul Gandhi promised that the 20 per cent poorest families will be given Rs 72,000 annually as a minimum income if his party is voted to power in the parliamentary polls.

“The latest announcement of the Congress if tested on simple arithmetic then Rs 72,000 is less than 2/3rd of the existing DBT under the Modi government. This on average Rs 1.068 lakh annually. So what is being claimed by the Congress party is only a bluff announcement.” he said.

“The Congress party has a history of using poverty and schemes for poverty alleviation for political gains,” Mr Jaitley told reporters at the party headquarters here.

“The Congress never had a history of fighting poverty, nor they had any legacy of providing funds to eradicate poverty. In the name of schemes, there have been only “chhal kapat (bluff),” he said adding right from the Nehruvian era India’s growth rate was hardly 3.5 per cent.

“It was an economic model that used to be mocked by the world and called ‘Hindu rate of growth’. There was hardly any attempt to fight poverty. Indira Gandhi won the 1971 elections with that ‘remove poverty’ slogan. But no funds were provided to run the schemes. There was no method of generation of wealth,” he said.

“Indira Gandhi did not believe in increased productivity. She did not believe in generation of wealth, she only believed in redistribution of poverty,” said Mr Jaitley, who is also the chairman of BJP publicity committee for the general elections.
Earlier in a series of tweets, Finance Minister said – “No political party has betrayed India for more than seven decades other than the Congress Party. It gave people of India slogans and very little resources to implement them”.
In contrast, Mr Jaitley maintained that the government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already given the poor what Congress promises and precisely more than what Mr Gandhi has stated.

Mr Jaitley further said during the 10 years of UPA rule also, a policy of ‘bluff’ guided economic policy of the erstwhile Manmohan Singh regime.

“Dhoka….Bluff hota tha,” he said pointing at the loan waiver scheme of 2008.

“What sort of favour will they (Congress) do to the poor by giving them Rs 3.6 lakh crore? We are already giving them one-and-a-half times more,” he said.

Mr Jaitley maintained that poverty can be fought only by providing resources which the Modi government has been doing 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 this trap this time,” he said.

The government and BJP leaders have implied that the existing schemes will be repackaged.

And in this context, Mr Jaitley questioned the economic rationale behind Congress announcement of a new scheme aimed at poverty alleviation.

He said even Congress leaders are aware of the issue of fiscal deficit.

“There is a need for fiscal prudence also and that is why they (Congress leaders) are tweeting repeatedly that the new announcement will not have any impact on the fiscal deficit,” Mr Jaitley told reporters at a special media briefing at BJP headquarters wherein he described the new proposal as yet another promise of falsehood and ‘Chhal-kapat (bluff)’.

“This was the same government which had taken the fiscal deficit to 5.6 per cent,” Finance Minister said adding it was during their tenure that inflation rate had jumped to 10.4.

BJP general secretary Ram Madhav also mocked at Congress leadership.

“If you are sure about your defeat, you can promise moon. Who takes it seriously? Already under different schemes poor families get much more support. Is it in addition to those schemes or they all will be subsumed in it?,” he tweeted.

I think the fiscal deficit may increase from 3.5% to 6%. All the credit rating agencies may bring down our ratings. We may not get loans from outside and eventually, our investments might be blocked: NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar on Rahul Gandhi's NYAY scheme promise

— DeshGujarat (@DeshGujarat) March 25, 2019

In 2008, P Chidambaram had increased the fiscal deficit from 2.5% to 6%. It’s the next step in that pattern. Rahul Gandhi today made the announcement without thinking about its impact on the economy: NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar on Rahul Gandhi's NYAY scheme promise

— DeshGujarat (@DeshGujarat) March 25, 2019

In the last 5 years, the govt. headed by PM @narendramodi introduced DBT through banks. Besides subsidies for food, fertilizer, kerosene, 55 Ministries handed over subsidies to the poor through the DBT which was enabled by AADHAAR. pic.twitter.com/29SQfsaR2J

— Chowkidar Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) March 25, 2019