Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram was speaking at the launch of his book ‘Undaunted: Saving the I (Source: PTI) Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram was speaking at the launch of his book ‘Undaunted: Saving the I (Source: PTI)

Former union minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram Saturday lauded the NDA government for some of its schemes, saying that every government takes some initiatives which are good and beneficial for the country.

Speaking at the launch of his book “Undaunted: Saving the Idea of India” in Chennai, Chidambaram was quoted by news agency PTI as saying, “I mean even the most incompetent government will do a few things which are good for the country. How can you deny that? Any government will do some good things.”

Chidambaram praised the NDA government’s effort to clean up River Ganga despite the project allegedly not yielding results. “Though it has not borne results, at least they are making a determined effort to clean the Ganga. I think five times we (UPA government) tried to clean the Ganga, we failed. I hope this time we won’t fail. They are making a determined effort to clean the Ganga, which I am quite proud about.”

The Congress leader also said the current government should be given credit for the implementation of National Highway programme. “I think the National Highway programme has been a success, they are building more kilometres per day than we did, I think the next government will build more as the system is in place,” he said.

Chidambaram also praised the NDA government for building on the schemes launched under the previous UPA government like Aadhar and ‘zero balance, no-frills bank accounts’ scheme now renamed as ‘Jan Dhan Yojna’.

“Jan Dhan is good. I compliment them. We started it, we opened 34 crore accounts and they have opened another 35 crore accounts, which is good,” Chidambaram said. “Likewise, the UPA regime launched the Aadhar initiative, and though BJP claimed that it would be scrapped, they did not ‘mercifully’ do that. The NDA government further built on it and facilitated cash transfer of subsidy for LPG through Aadhar,” he added.

Besides the praise, Chidambaram was equally critical of the NDA government over the flawed implementation of schemes like GST and demonetisation, calling it “the largest evil to the largest number”.

On coalition governments at the Centre, Chidambaram said the governments led by leaders, including Dr Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee delivered. “It is a distortion of history to say that only majority governments have worked,” he said.

“Coalitions stood a better chance of delivering in view of the checks and balances and demonetisation could have never happened in such a setup,” he added.

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