‘Pandavas’ will come back, says Congress LS leader Mallikarjun Kharge

New Delhi: Dicussion on President’s speech took off in the Parliament on a stormy note on Tuesday, with leader of the House in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitely, tearing apart previous Congress led UPA government for “misgovernance”.

In the Lok Sabha, leader of the Congress Mallikarjun Kharge, sought to counter ruling alliance by calling them “Kaurav (of Mahabharat)” and claiming that even if “Pandavs” are lesser in number, they would return to power eventually.

Mr Jaitely claimed that the previous government has left the economy in shambles.

“As a legacy, the NDA government had handed over the economy of an 8.5 per cent GDP growth to the UPA in 2004. But India saw less than five per cent growth in the last two years, which was a clear big disappointment for the country,” said Mr Jaitely.

Seeking to diagnose what went wrong with the UPA government, Mr Jaitely said, the single key aberration was the weakening of the office of the Prime Minister, with too many extraneous factors not allowing right decisions.

He stated that the previous government in the name of poverty alleviation ended up “elevating” poverty.

“We will resurrect the economy under the strong leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. NDA has come to power riding on high expectations of people which has put greater burden on the government to perform,” said Mr Jaitely.

He said that people rejected parties in the polls which depended on family or caste politics.