New Delhi: The BJP and the Congress locked horns in Rajya Sabha on Monday while participating in a Motion of Thanks on the President’s address to the joint sitting of Parliament.
Last month the PM had said that his government had emphasised self-employment and job creation, for which loans had been disbursed, and that selling pakodas, too, is a job. To this, Mr Chidambaram had said: “By that logic, even begging is a job. Let’s count poor or disabled persons who are forced to beg for a living as ‘employed’ people.”
Asserting that a lot of the government’s effort in the last three years had gone into “paving the potholes” that the Congress had dug in India over “55 years of one-family rule”, Mr Shah attacked the Congress over its chief Rahul Gandhi’s mockery of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as the “Gabbar Singh Tax”.
The GST is not a loot, instead it is for the benefit of the economy, Mr Shah said and went on to add that canards are being spread that the BJP was against GST when it was in Opposition.
He also asked the Congress whether it was inciting people not to pay taxes. “Is a dacoity taking place here? Is legally claiming taxes from people a dacoity? Is this the understanding of people? And where does this Gabbar Singh Tax/GST go? It goes in the bank account of a jawan for giving One Rank, One Pension, it goes in the bank account of widows of martyrs. It goes towards giving the poor women Ujjwala Yojana,” Mr Shah said.
Mr Shah also pitched for simultaneous Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, besides touching upon a host of measures taken by his government. The BJP chief also pitched for simultaneous Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, besides touching upon a host of measures taken by his government, including Triple Talaq and the OBC Commission Bill that are stuck in the Upper House.
Mr Modi, who sat in the Upper House for nearly three hours, later tweeted, “A wonderful speech by BJP President Amit Shah in Rajya Sabha.”
Ghulam Nabi Azad, Leader of Opposition and senior Congress leader, took on the ruling party over various issues, including systemic attempts to “polarise” the nation. Mr Azad said that the Modi government is not a “game changer” but just a “name changer,” and listed out schemes of the Congress governments that have been renamed.
“There is only one party and people of their choice and those belonging to them are getting employment and opportunities,” Mr Azad said, and attacked the government saying that today a different form of appeasement is taking place.
“A fear psychosis has set in. You cannot see when you are in power. If someone is scared to talk to the Opposition or transact with them, it is not good for democracy or freedom of speech or even freedom of business.”
Mr Azad also touched upon the agrarian crisis, condition of farmers and situation prevailing in Kashmir.
