Robin Hood economics cannot work anymore: Sitharaman slams Congress

While the BJP, she said, would continue on its path of improving economic growth along with targeted distribution of amenities to needy people, the Congress wanted to take away someone else’s money and give it to many others.

“Instead of making the poor wealthier, their solution is to make the wealthier poor. It’s just unjust. Wealth creators also provide jobs and opportunities to people and resources to the government. Sensationalising it only because you are desperate to win and come to power shows you care nothing for people,” she said.

Asked about the Prime Minister’s recent statement on whether truckloads of money had been sent by Ambani and Adani to the Congress party, Sitharaman said the Prime Minister was only calling out Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party on their hypocrisy towards India’s wealth creators.

“For the past few years, they have been weaving this disastrous narrative of crony capitalism and showcased businessmen as people who loot. Why have they suddenly lost hate for Adani and Ambani? Has something been coming to the Congress from them?” she said.

Pointing out that the BJP treated businessmen and entrepreneurs with respect and gave them opportunities to perform so that they could create more jobs and contribute to the country’s wealth creation, Sitharaman said entrepreneurship had given India its strength.

“After developing a narrative of hatred towards businessmen, Congress perhaps couldn’t find a graceful way to exit, and suddenly adopted silence in the hope that people will no longer notice their hatred. The PM’s speech was in that spirit,” she said.

Sitharaman said she hoped that the Reserve Bank of India would initiate a “vibrant discussion” on the draft guidelines on project finance, which proposed steep provisioning, as it was important for all voices to be heard before taking a final decision on such issues.

Asked whether she agreed with the view that there was regulatory overreach in some areas, she said the regulators had been doing a “very professional” job, but it was important to continue to keep “our ears close to the ground” so that some of the regulations could be fine-tuned.

“Regulation, whether it’s for equity markets or banks or corporate entities, can’t be fixated. A soft touch always results in better response from the regulated,” she said.

On the worries in the stock market over the margin of victory for the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections, she said she simply didn’t understand where “this narrative of the results being not favourable to us” was coming from.

The Opposition, she said, was building this false narrative to undermine expectations about the BJP’s performance in the first two phases of the elections.

“Market is reacting to this narrative being built. The actual results may be very different as we are sure to come up with a good majority,” she said, referring to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s recent assertion that the target of 370-plus seats will be met on June 4.