New Delhi: The BJP and the Congress locked horns in the Rajya Sabha on Monday while participating in a Motion of Thanks on the President’s address to the joint sitting of Parliament.
Making his maiden speech, Amit Shah, BJP president and now a member of the Upper House, ripped into the Congress for its criticism of the government’s economic policies, especially former finance minister P. Chidambaram’s contemptuous dismissal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent claim that even selling pakodas is an instance of job-creation.
“Chidambaram compared pakoda-selling with begging. Those selling pakodas are self-employed. Can you compare them with beggars? It is better for a youth to earn living selling pakodas instead of being unemployed. Making pakodas is not shameful, what is shameful is comparing such a person with a beggar,” Mr Shah said, pointing out that a “chaiwala’s (tea-seller’s) son has become the Prime Minister today.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was present in the Rajya Sabha and sat next to Mr Shah as the BJP chief, initiating the discussion, spoke for over an hour, and told Opposition MPs who interrupted him, “Well, you will have to listen to me for the next six years.”
Mr Shah listed at length his government’s achievements and what he called its “historic work” since it came to power, contrasting it with the Congress governments, which he said had suffered from “acute policy paralysis.”
