Centre uses meet on Sri Lanka to caution against ‘revri culture’

The government, however, later justified using the all-party meeting on the economic crisis in Sri Lanka for highlighting the financial situation in the state

The government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Centre on Tuesday used an all-party meeting on the situation in Sri Lanka to underline the importance of exercising fiscal prudence and to caution, the states against indulging in the practice of distributing freebies or the “revri culture” as Prime Minister Narendra Modi described recently.

The representatives of the opposition parties, including the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), raised objections when the officials of the Ministry of Finance made presentations on the financial health of some states, particularly the budgeted and non-budgeted borrowings by some state governments.

The government sources, however, later justified using the all-party meeting on the economic crisis in Sri Lanka for highlighting the financial situation in the state and for underlining the importance of practicing fiscal prudence.

The TRS, TMC and the DMK are in power in Telangana, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu respectively.

The YSR Congress Party, which is in power in Andhra Pradesh and has often been friendly to the Modi Government at the Centre, also expressed its displeasure over the move by the Ministry of Finance to use the forum to preach fiscal prudence to the State Governments.

So did Congress, the principal opposition party in parliament and the ruling party in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. The BJP and some other political parties however supported the government’s move to highlight the lessons India should learn from the economic downturn in Sri Lanka.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi briefed the representatives of all political parties on the situation in Sri Lanka. He later told journalists that the lessons India should learn from the economic crisis in the neighbouring island nation were very important and included the importance of practicing fiscal prudence and responsible governance as well as the importance of avoiding a culture of freebies.

The government apparently sought to cite the economic crisis in Sri Lanka to caution the state governments in India, particularly the ones ruled by the opposition parties, against resorting to distributing freebies and thus jeopardizing the fiscal health of the states in order to win elections.

The prime minister, himself, recently cautioned against the practice of distributing freebies to win elections. He termed it “revri (sweet) culture”, while addressing a rally at the inauguration of Bundelkhand Expressway in Jalaun in Uttar Pradesh.

P Chidambaram and Manickam Tagore of the Congress, Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), T R Baalu and M M Abdulla of the DMK, M Thambidurai of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Saugata Ray of the TMC, Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference, Sanjay Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party and Keshava Rao of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi attended the all-party meeting, which was held on the second day of the monsoon session of Parliament.

Jaishankar said that India was worried over the very serious and unprecedented economic crisis in Sri Lanka. He, however, termed as a misinformed comparison the speculation over India also experiencing a crisis like the one in Sri Lanka.

New Delhi has so far provided assistance worth over $ 3.8 billion this year to help cash-strapped Sri Lanka and also sent consignments of food, fuel, medicines, fertilizers and other essentials.