Govt on wild adventure of grand clearance of sale of PSUs: Sonia Gandhi

Accusing the Narendra Modi dispensation of not having an exit strategy from the COVID-19 lockdown, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday said the government had turned its economic package into a "cruel joke" by embarking on a "wild adventure of so-called reforms, including a grand clearance sale" of Public Sector Undertakings and a repeal of labour law.

Addressing Opposition leaders during a video conference, she said it was worrisome some that the Centre has no solutions to people's problem while it still remained uncertain about the criteria for the lockdown imposed in the country.

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"A number of renowned economists are predicting that 2020-21 will end with negative growth of up to minus 5%. The consequences will be catastrophic. That the present government has no solutions is worrying but that it has no empathy or compassion for the poor and vulnerable is heartbreaking," she said.

The government has also "abandoned any pretence of being a democratic government" and all power is now "concentrated in one office", the Prime Minister's Office, she told the meeting attended by leaders of 22 Opposition parties, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, her Maharashtra counterpart Uddhav Thackeray and CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury.

"The spirit of Federalism which is an integral part of our Constitution is all but forgotten. There is no indication either if the two Houses of Parliament or the Standing Committees will be summoned to meet," she said.

She said the whole Opposition offered full support to the government when the lockdown was imposed with barely four-hour notice.

"The initial optimism of the Prime Minister that the war against the virus would conclude in 21 days has turned out to be misplaced. It seems that the virus is here to stay until a vaccine is found. I am also of the view that the government was uncertain about the criteria for lockdowns, nor does it have an exit strategy. Successive lockdowns have yielded diminishing returns. The government also stumbled badly on the testing strategy and the import of test kits. Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to take its toll," she said.

She said the defining image of the pandemic has been the "lakhs of migrant workers, many with children, walking hundreds of kilometres, without money, food or medicines, desperate to reach their home states".

Sonia alleged that those who have been "cruelly ignored" by the government also include 13 crore families in the bottom half of the population like tenant farmers and landless agricultural workers, the laid off or retrenched workers and employees, shopkeepers and the self-employed,5.8 crore out of the 6.3 crore MSMEs and organized industries. The appeal to transfer cash to the poor, free grain, transportation of migrant workers fell on deaf ears, she added.

She said the country was facing an economic crisis even before the first COVID-19 case was identified and "demonetisation and a hasty and flaw GST were amongst its main causes".

"The economic downturn began in 2017-18. Seven quarters of declining GDP growth was no ordinary event; it was unprecedented. Yet, the government carried on with its misguided policies and incompetent governance," she said.