People will not be taken in by tricks: Jaitley

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 25

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday accused the Congress of misleading and betraying people through false promises.

Launching a scathing attack against Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the Congress only believed making false promises but his was a government that believed in giving them means to eradicate the poverty.    

“They have betrayed the country for past 50 years on the name of poverty. The cross hangs on your name for letting down the poor of the people.But the poor of the country will not be taken in by false promises. The people of the country have seen a government that believes in giving means to eradicate poverty,” Jaitley said, adding that people won't be taken in by "chal kapat" (tricks). 

The Finance Minister also claimed that the current government was giving much more to people than was being promised by the Congress. “Poverty will not be eradicated through slogans, only means. How can you do it without putting fiscal pressure on the government,” he questioned.

Jaitley also said that it was a practice of the Congress to follow a politics of trickery and mislead people.   

“No political party has betrayed India for more than seven decades other than the Congress Party. It gave to the people of India many slogans and very little resources to implement them. “The Nehruvian era pushed India to the 3.5% rate of growth.  When the world was moving fast and opening up, we decided to regulate our economy.  Indiraji understood slogans better than economics.  Inflation, unemployment, corruption and erroneous policies hindered India,” he said. 

“A large part of economic reforms unleashed in 1991, was to undo what she did.  In 1971, she gave her legendary slogan ‘Garibi Hatao’.  Her economics was not about increasing production and generating wealth, but only about redistribution of poverty,” he said.

The Congress on Monday announced a direct cash transfer of Rs 72,000 in the bank accounts of 20 per cent of India’s poorest people.