Congress slams President's speech

The Congress on Tuesday slammed the Modi government for failing to deliver on promises of economic growth and job creation. The Congress also dubbed President Pranab Mukherjee’s address to Parliament “verbose” with the Modi government “filling it with every possible word available in the dictionary to project a pro-poor” image.

“The government has not spared any word in the dictionary – Dalits, exploited, suffering, deprived, farmers, soldiers, youth have been used in the President’s address,” Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, said at a press conference here.

Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said under the Modi government, the election slogan ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ has turned hollow. Modi’s actions have led to ‘RSS ka Saath, BJP ka Vikas’, Azad said.

 Azad made it clear that there was nothing wrong in criticising the President’s address as it is written by the government. “When we criticise it, we are not criticising the President, but finding fault with the government,” he said.

In a separate statement, Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said the Economic Survey made it clear that the Indian economy was in the “doldrums” and on a “downword trajectory” on account of mismanagement by the Modi government.

“Lack of financial acumen and understanding of Indian economy’s strength and fault lines by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team have led to the sorry state reflected in the Economic Survey of falling exports, vanishing jobs, reduction in credit growth, depleting capital formation and massive downslide in demands and corporate sales,” Surjewala said.