The Grand Alliance on Thursday upped its ante against the NDA, releasing video clips of promises Narendra Modi made during the Lok Sabha elections last year to "expose" his government.
Grand Alliance leaders Randeep Singh Surjewala of the Congress, Pavan Varma of the JDU and Manoj Jha of the RJD attacked the NDA on issues like minimum support price, land acquisition bill, price rise and sluggish industrial growth among others.
Branding the BJP as anti-farmer, the allies presented a video clip in which Modi was seen promising farmers a minimum support price (MSP) that was around 50 per cent over their input costs. The allies pointed out that the Centre later retracted the statement in Supreme Court.
The alliance leaders took credit for not allowing the Modi government to push its land acquisition bill and ensure that the old one remained in place. Surjewala said core infrastructure and industrial growth in the country dropped to a meagre 2.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2015-16 fiscal, against 8.7 per cent during the corresponding period the year before.
"The Modi government's promise to provide 2 crore jobs every year failed to take off in the first year itself. Service taxes have been raised from 12.36 per cent to 14 per cent. Prices of onions, pulses, flour and edible oil are sky high. Fuel prices are also exorbitant, despite the fall in crude oil prices in the international market," he said.
The Congress leader was of the opinion that the market price of petrol and diesel should be Rs 30.99 and Rs 24.61 per litre, respectively, if international crude oil prices are factored in. The video clips also showed Modi talking about bringing back black money and providing Rs 15-20 lakh to every person in the country and juxtaposed it with BJP president Amit Shah countering it as a "jumla (metaphor)" made during election speeches.
The alliance leaders held the Centre responsible for the poor condition of sugar factories in Bihar. Sources in the sugarcane industry, however, said it was the state government's domain and the Centre could not be held responsible for this.
JDU leader Varma appealed to people of the state to remain cautious of those who were making promises with the intention of gathering votes during elections. He said the BJP was a master in the art of fooling people.
RJD leader Manoj Jha said Bihar did not want a development model that focused only on advancement of industrialists. He said Bihar had different issues, problems and needs and any development model should be in sync with the socio-economic realities of the state.
Jungle raj bluff
Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday countered the NDA's charge of "jungle raj" by quoting figures from the National Crime Record Bureau, reports PTI.
Addressing election rallies at Samastipur and Begusarai districts, Nitish said that according to the NCRB's latest report for 2014, more crimes had taken place in BJP-ruled states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, than in Bihar, and wondered if a " mangal raj" prevailed there.
He said that at the national level there were 229 heinous crimes per one lakh population in 2014. The figure for Delhi, where law and order is controlled by the central government, is 764, he pointed out. In Madhya Pradesh, the the crime data was 358, Haryana 258, Chhattisgarh 229 and Gujarat 213 in 2014, Nitish said, quoting from the NCRB report. "On the other hand, the crime figure for Bihar in the same NCRB report for 2014 is 174 per one lakh population. Bihar figures at 22nd position in the ranking of states," he said. "With 174 crimes per one lakh population Bihar has 'jungle raj', whereas BJP-ruled states with much higher figures has 'mangal raj'," he asked expressing surprise.
