NEW DELHI: Finance minister Arun Jaitley tore into Rahul’s minimum income plan and accused it of insincerity, saying it had never implemented its poll time promises. “The party has a long legacy of slogans with no resources. It has a history of bluff announcements. Karnataka so far has spent only Rs 2,600 crore (on farm loan waiver ), Madhya Pradesh Rs 3,000 crore and Punjab Rs 5,500 crore in two years. Farmers are still waiting,” he said.

In a press conference later, Jaitley questioned the maths of the Congress plan amid the claim of the opposition party that it would have no additional impact on fiscal deficit. He said Congress’s farm loan waivers since 2008 had been poorly delivered and often went to wrong hands and populist promises were merely intended to sway voters.

Congress offers mega sop: Rs 6000 a month to 20% of India’s poorest

“Congress in general and the Gandhi family in particular, since ‘ Garibi Hatao ’ slogan was given, has ruled India for more than two-thirds of that period. If it has failed to even address poverty during this period, why should India believe it?” he asked.

“If the Congress party's announcement is tested on simple arithmetic, Rs 72,000 for five crore families works out to be Rs.3.6 lakh crore, which is less than two-thirds of what is being given by the current government,” Jaitley said.

“What sort of favour will they (Congress) do to the poor by giving them Rs 3.6 lakh crore? We are already giving them one-and-a-half times more,” he said, noting that the 20% poorest families were already getting Rs 1.06 lakh each under various government schemes against Rs 72,000 promised by Congress.

Jaitley said in addition to the over Rs 5 lakh crore, there were several other schemes which provided several thousands of crores more to the poor.

He said no political party had betrayed India more than Congress. “It gave to the people of India many slogans and very little resources to implement them,” he said, adding that the UPA government, between 2004-2014, conferred a large number of ‘rights’ without resources to implement them.

The FM said the Nehruvian era pushed India to the 3.5% rate of growth. “Indiraji understood slogans better than economics. Inflation, unemployment, corruption and erroneous policies hindered India. A large part of economic reforms unleashed in 1991 was to undo what she did,” he said.

“In 1971, she gave her legendary slogan ‘Garibi Hatao’. Her economics was not about increasing production and generating wealth, but only about redistribution of poverty,” Jaitley said.



In Video: Rahul Gandhi's income promise a bluff announcement: Arun Jaitley