Opposition takes on BJP over 'tall claims'

In a coordinated attack, Opposition parties on Wednesday charged the BJP of painting a rosy picture inside Parliament, while the ground realities are in stark contrast.

"While BJP president Amit Shah painted a rosy picture on the government's achievements, the party's allies in Maharashtra, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh sang a different tune," senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said in the Rajya Sabha while speaking on the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address.

Shah initiated the debate on the motion on Monday.

"It's an arrogant government with no tolerance. It's only agenda is to discredit the Gandhi family,"  said Patel, who is the political secretary of former Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

The Congress leader received support from several other Opposition leaders, who closed ranks in coming down heavily on the NDA government on unfulfilled promises.

"By 2022, the Oxford Dictionary would have a new word to denote making tall claims without any delivery. That word would be jumla," Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien said.

The Opposition leaders cited the examples of Ujjwala scheme (on free LPG connections), the budget announcement of giving 1.5 times MSP of farm produce and the much talked about national health protection scheme as cases where the government misled the people.

"Farmers were defrauded as the government changed the way to calculate the MSP and then making the promise of 1.5 times more than the production cost as the MSP. In the Ujjwala scheme, no one is buying the gas cylinders anymore as the cylinder prices went up. They returned to the old cook stoves," said Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav.

On the BJP's claim of providing an honest government, Patel wondered why the government stopped furnishing responses to RTI queries if it is so honest. "RTI budget has also been slashed and the department (CIC) was facing a staff crunch," he added.