Except for demonetisation, no original move by Modi govt: Cong

New Delhi:  The Congress alleged today that the Modi government had not come out with any original initiative except for demonetisation, and that it repackaged and renamed 23 welfare schemes started by the previous dispensations.

Senior Congress leader Rajeev Shukla said the Modi government had inherited 23 welfare schemes which were at various stages of implementation, renamed and presented them as its own. He also said Aadhaar and rural job scheme MNREGA were two initiatives, which were earlier criticised strongly by the BJP, but were now being taken forward as its own.

“Except for the note ban, the Modi government has not conceived and come out with any original public welfare scheme. They inherited 23 schemes on a platter which were already at various stages of implementation, but they have completely failed,” he told reporters.

“They adopted our schemes and befooled the public after coming to power,” he alleged. Shukla asked if the UPA government’s schemes were “wrong”, why did the present NDA regime take over all of them. He said whether it was ‘Make in India’ or ‘skill India’, affordable housing for the poor or distributing soil health cards to farmers, the “BJP’s glaring failures are completely evident”.

The former Union minister alleged that the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which was originally conceived and introduced in Parliament by the Congress, was taken forward by the BJP but its implementation has been “bad and ill-planned”, causing sufferings to people.

The Congress leader claimed everything was in a “limbo” as a result of which the benefits of these schemes were not reaching people. He said that the B K Chaturvedi Reforms Committee report was gathering dust. Shukla also listed out the schemes which the BJP and renamed and claimed as its own.

‘Indira Awas Yojna’ and ‘Rajiv Awas Yojna were renamed as ‘Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna’ and ‘Sardar Patel National Urban Hosing Mission’, he said. ‘National Project on Management of Soil Health and Fertility’ was changed to ‘soil health card scheme’.

The ‘no-frills accounts – Swabhimaan’ was renamed as ‘jan dhan yojna’, ‘Swalambhan scheme’ as ‘Atal Pension Yojna’, and ‘Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran yojna’ as ‘Deep Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojna’, he said. The national manufacturing policy, he said, was renamed as ‘make in India’, while the JNNURM was rechristened as ‘AMRUT’ and ‘Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan’ as ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’.