The Karnataka unit of the opposition Congress on Saturday slammed the NDA government for the proposed selling of its equity stake in the state-run Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC).
"Another blunder of the (NDA) government is the announcement of selling stake in LIC. This is again a bid to privatise LIC and open it to private parties, putting people's deposits in danger," tweeted the party's state unit here.
Presenting the Union Budget for fiscal 2020-21 in the Lok Sabha, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the government proposed to sell a part of its holding in LIC through the initial public offer (IPO)."
"The government is hell bent on selling the country to their capitalist friends from railways to LIC India," alleged the party in the tweet.
The minister, however, did not disclose the details of the LIC going public. The central government owns the entire 100 per cent equity in LIC, which was established in the year 1956 by an Act of Parliament.
The Karnataka Congress slammed the BJP government and accused it of lying to the people about the suburban rail project in Bengaluru. Reacting to announcement, Congress spokesperson Srivatsa said in a tweet, “Stop lying Minister. Rs 18,300 crore is the total project cost and we have known that for years now. What's the exact amount allocated for Bengaluru Suburban Rail in this year? Also, Centre is paying just 20% of total cost. Rest? BJP's Suburban Rail Jumla going on for years now,” he said.
The party also accused the BJP-led Narendra Modi government of lying to the people about creating employment and reducing the poverty rate.
“The country has problems of hunger, poverty, unemployment, industry downturns, more than 1 crore job losses. There is a need to create 1 crore jobs in this country. Narendra Modi and his government hid the truth and lied about this. The current budget is a malicious attempt to keep the country in the dark,” the Karnataka Congress said in a tweet.
Congress spokesperson and former Ballari MP VS Ugrappa in a press conference said that the budget is very disappointing. “The country's GGDP fell to 4.5%. India’s ranking in terms of addressing hunger stands at 103 in the global index. In terms of administration and policy, India’s ranking on a global scale fell from 41 to 51. This is a very disappointing budget,” Ugrappa said.
With IANS inputs