New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said the ‘Nyay’ scheme will remonetise what Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetised and asserted that his party’s anti-poverty programme has thrown the BJP into total disarray
In an exclusive interview to PTI ahead of the 17th general election beginning April 11, Mr Gandhi said the “Nyay” scheme has the twin objectives of giving money to the 20 per cent poorest families in India and remonetising the economy “damaged” by demonetisation.
“What the PM has done over the past five years is to remove all money from the economy with failed policies like demonetisation and a poorly executed Gabbar Singh Tax (GST). Informal sectors have been badly hit.
“The aim of the ‘Nyay’ scheme is two-fold. First is to guarantee a minimum income to the bottom 20 per cent families. The second is to remonetise the economy that has been demonetised by Modiji,” Gandhi said.
The Congress chief said there is a reason why the party christened the scheme “Nyay”, which translates to justice in Hindi.
“There is another aspect to calling the scheme ‘Nyay’. Why have we chosen to call this scheme ‘Justice’? Because over the last five years, Mr Narendra Modi has simply snatched from poor and given nothing back.
“He has taken away from the farmers, he has snatched from the small and medium businesses, he’s taken away from the unemployed youth, he has extinguished the savings of mothers and sisters of this country.
We want to return to India’s deprived sections what Modiji has snatched from them,” Mr Gandhi said.
Terming “Nyay” (Nyuntam Aay Yojana) a “game changer” and a “final assault” on poverty, Gandhi said the scheme is “fiscally perfectly doable” and will not be implemented “rashly like demonetization and GST of the BJP”.
Asked about apprehensions of some economists that “Nyay”, which entails an expenditure of Rs 3.6 lakh crore annually, could aggravate India’s fiscal deficit position, Gandhi said, “No, that’s not right.”
He said the party consulted a large number of economists and experts, studied numerous papers and other research material on this subject and run an extensive financial modelling exercise before deciding to include the plan in its Lok Sabha manifesto.
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