Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who spoke in Lok Sabha on August 10, Thursday listed the achievements of the Modi government in the last nine years and attacked the opposition parties, particularly the Congress and the DMK. When speaking on issues raised by the opposition leaders, Sitharaman blamed the Tamil Nadu government for the delay in building the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Madurai even as MPs from the DMK walked out in protest.
Referring to a comment made by DMK MP Kanimozhi on the disrobing of Draupadi from Mahabharatha, Nirmala asked if the DMK members remembered a similar incident that happened with J Jayalalithaa when she was the Leader of the Opposition in 1989. “Jayalalithaa’s saree was pulled and DMK members seated there heckled, laughed and made fun of her. You are talking of Draupadi? Has the DMK forgotten Jayalalitha? You demeaned her. That party which was in power at that time, they talk of Draupadi?” she said, attacking the DMK.
Addressing the issue of sengol, which had created a massive controversy ahead of the inauguration of the new Parliament building in May, the Union Minister asked MPs from Tamil Nadu if they knew the importance of the sengol and alleged that it was given to former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and was forgotten and kept in a museum. “The sengol was called a walking stick. Is that not an insult to the Tamil people? When PM Modi restored it to its rightful place in Lok Sabha, it became an issue,” she said.
Talking about the price rise and the steps the Union government has taken to bring down the prices of essential commodities, the FM said that efforts are on to make tomatoes affordable by procuring them from states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, where tomatoes are grown and distributed through cooperative societies at a subsidised rate. “The National Cooperative Consumers' Federation Of India (NCCF) has distributed 88,84,612 kgs of tomatoes in Rajasthan, Delhi, NCR region and Uttar Pradesh. This will increase in the coming days. Prices have already decreased in wholesale markets in Andhra and Karnataka to below Rs 100.
We have also initiated imports from Nepal and it is likely to reach Varanasi, Lucknow and Kanpur by Friday,” she added.
She alleged that the opposition parties have not reduced the prices of fuel, as a result of which inflation continues to be high. “Rajasthan, Bihar, Kerala, and Telangana have all kept prices high. Punjab has increased the price of fuel, although PM Modi twice reduced the price by cutting excise duty,” she said.
Taking potshots at the opposition, Nirmala Sitharaman alleged that the UPA wasted an entire decade because of corruption and cronyism. “People have already shown no confidence in UPA in 2014 and 2019. Why did they want to change the UPA name? This INDIA is just for the sanctity as people remember cronyism, dynasty etc,” she said.
Continuing her attack on the newly formed alliance of the opposition parties called INDIA, Sitharaman accused the alliance partners of fighting each other or with each other. “In Punjab, AAP and Congress fight against each other. In Delhi, AAP and Congress; in West Bengal TMC and the left; in Kerala the left and Congress; in Jammu and Kashmir PDP and NC, and in Gujarat AAP and Congress fight against each other. The Karnataka Health Minister was in Delhi to see the mohalla clinics and he said there is nothing good in them,” she said.
Defending the Modi government’s handling of the economy, she said China was going through severe deflation. “The US too has been on a downtrend because of the fluctuations in their stock market. In view of all this, we need to look at India’s situation. In 2013, Morgan Stanley declared India as a fragile economy. Now, India has been upgraded because of the policies of our government. India is the fastest-growing economy, while the economies of other countries are slowing down. Even after the Covid crisis, we are now on a fast track to become a bigger economy,” the Finance Minister said.
In her long speech, she also spoke extensively about the schemes of the Modi government. ‘You used to show the public dreams, we fulfil them. We believe in empowering all and appeasement of none. During UPA, people used to say electricity, gas connection, water supply, homes, toilets, roads, and highways will reach them, but now people say they have already gotten all this. They used to show dreams to people, but we make them come true”, she said, continuing to attack the Congress.
The Finance Minister placed data on several sectors and said that 1.79 crore houses were built for the poor in 2014, and now, it had increased to 2.9 crore houses. “There were 723 universities in India in 2014, and now it has become 1,113. There were 74 airports, now there are 148. There were 91,287 kms of highways till 2014, and now it has increased to 1.45 lakh kms. From 2016-17, recognisable start-ups have increased by 19 times. We no longer import technology but export it,” Nirmala said.