On Friday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman lashed out at former Congress President Rahul Gandhi for his allegations that the Budget this year failed to focus on the poor. She recalled Gandhi’s ‘poverty is just a state of mind’ remark from 2013 and asked him which kind of poverty was she supposed to address.
“What is poverty? Please be clear, is this the poverty that you wanted me to address, the poverty of mind?”, she said during the discussion on the Budget in the Rajya Sabha. She also sharply hit at Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi who interrupted Sitharaman and said that the Finance Minister was mocking the poor people. “I am not mocking the poor people. The person who had mocked the poor people, you are in alliance with his party”, she roared.
Further hitting out at the Rahul Gandhi without directly mentioning him, the Finance Minister stated that former Congress president had said that poverty does not mean scarcity of food, money or material things. If one possesses self-confidence, then one can overcome it. “He said poverty is a state of mind. I’ve not named the person but we know who it is”, she slammed. (video pause 1:02:14)
As the opposition began to protest the scene, the Finance Minister cleared that the ‘poverty is just a state of mind’ comment was said by someone else and that she was just quoting it. Rahul Gandhi in 2013 had quoted the controversial comment at a function of Dalit Resource Centre (DRC) organised by the Gobind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute in Allahabad. Later the DRC had covered him up saying that his statement regarding poverty was misinterpreted.
Nirmala Sitharaman in the Upper House also said that India needs to have vision for next 25 years, the Amrit Kal. If there is no vision for India at 100, the country will suffer in the same way it has been suffering for last 70 years under the Congress regime. The only vision Congress had is to support, built and benefit one single family, she added. (video pause 9:44)
Further hitting out at the Congress’ MGNREGA scheme, Sitharaman affirmed that the scheme was infested with ghost accounts and turned out to be the source of corruption at that time. “MGNREGA was an act because of UPA. But they (UPA) misused it. The scheme was infested with ghost accounts. Its misuse it to their credit”, she said. (video pause 27:15)
MGNREGA was an act because of them (Congress), but MGNREGA’s misuse was also due to them; it was infested with ghost accounts. Take the entire credit for the misuse of MGNREGA. We use the scheme transparently & properly: FM Nirmala Sitharaman in Rajya Sabha#Budget2022 pic.twitter.com/7GHveqLenx
— ANI (@ANI) February 11, 2022
The Congress Party members in the Parliament also passed comments on Central Government’s policies being ‘remote controlled from Nagpur’. Sitharaman in response to that, reminded the Congress of ‘one general secretary who tore the bill in public’. “The respected Dr Manmohan Singh was going to meet the US President after two hours. And the Congress General Secretary tore the bill in public here. Wasn’t that remote control?”, she questioned. (video pause 1:19:00)
The Finance Minister added that the national policies during the Congress regime were decided at 10 Janpath (Sonia Gandhi’s residence) and were announced at 7 Lok Kalyan Marg (Dr Manmohan Singh’s residence then). She reiterated that the Congress party till date is being remote controlled and that it lacks the party democracy.
The first part of the Budget Session that began on January 31, concluded today. The second part is slated to take place from March 14 to April 8.
