UPA is Under Performing Alliance, says BJP MP Zafar Islam
The BJP MP’s remarks came days after Congress MP P Chidambaram called the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) a ‘no data available’ government in Parliament
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker Syed Zafar Islam on Thursday attacked the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government by calling it an “Under Performing Alliance”. His remarks came days after Congress MP and former Union minister P Chidambaram called the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) a “no data available” government during the Budget discussion in Parliament.
“I want to remind them (UPA) that they mentioned (in their manifesto) about providing electricity to everyone. Did they? No,” the BJP MP said in the Rajya Sabha, adding that it was the NDA government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that fulfilled the promise.
The BJP Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh added, “They made many promises to supply water to every household in India and to eradicate terrorism… UPA did not fulfil their promises, so we took up their unfinished tasks.”
During the budget discussion in the Upper House on Tuesday, Chidambaram claimed that out of the 940-million workforce in India, only 520 million were employed while the remaining were looking for jobs, despite “the Prime Minister’s promise of providing 20 million jobs a year”. The Congress MP had cited data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s (CMIE) report on unemployment that suggested the employment rate is 7.4% in urban areas and 6.54% in rural India.
Zafar Islam said that the mention of the CMIE data by Chidambaram was “misleading”. “He (Chidambaram) picked up one week’s data from the month of January and presented it in Parliament in an attempt to mislead Parliament… I challenge him to present the correct data in the House,” the BJP leader added.
“January’s CMIE data shows that unemployment rate drastically dropped to 6.57% and reached pre-pandemic levels… Each month our government is creating 10 lakh (1 million) jobs. What does that suggest?” he asked
Taking further dig at the UPA, Islam said, “In 2021 when the public needed our help, we distributed Atmanirbhar packages to support the marginalised communities. But now that jobs are returning, our conservative budget is given as a reference point… If necessary, we will expand our budget based on the people’s needs.”
Defending the fiscal deficit in this year’s budget, he added: “We have given very conservative numbers… because we know the kind of growth we will see. In FY22, our estimate for tax collection was 9.9% but it grew to 10.8%.”
