Modi govt a mirror image of Mamata’s: Jairam Ramesh

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Ramesh also accused the Modi government of being arrogant. “Before coming to power, Modi’s slogan was, maximum governance, minimum government. After a year, it has become maximum arrogance, one-man government. It is a mirror image of the one-woman government in Bengal and that is why they are together. All the ministers are non-entities and all MPs are zeros. Modi is only interested in Bhakti Yoga, that is, being worshipped,” Ramesh said.

He also claimed that Modi had promised a ‘turnaround’ of the government and all he had done was a series of U-turns. “He opposed the GST bill as the CM of Gujarat and today he is the biggest champion of the GST, he was against the Indo-US nuclear agreement and today he supports it, he had opposed UID, and now he is all for Aadhar. We want to ask, why did he oppose those then,” Ramesh added.

Ramesh also said that the Modi was the ‘guru of re-packaging and marketing. “He is a master expert of taking UPA schemes, repackaging those, giving those a new name and taking the credits for himself,” he said citing examples of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan which he said was identical to Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan. “The IISCO modernisation plant which the PM inaugurated was not done in one year. It had taken over six years.

On the last point, he said that Modi had brutally cut budgetary allocation to several welfare schemes. “In the women and child department, the allocation has come down from Rs 18,000 crore to Rs 8,000 crore. The health sector has seen a drop from Rs 35,000 crore to Rs 29,000 crore. Allocation for drinking water and sanitation department has come down from Rs 15,000 crore to Rs 6,000 crore. The agriculture sector allocation has been cut from Rs 23,000 crore to Rs 17,000 crore and the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana allocation has seen a fall from Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 14,000 crore,” Ramesh said.