Unfair charge that NDA ignored farmers

In fact the only two measures that I can think of which had an impact on capital markets was that of the increase in the Distribution Tax by the NDA government. Mr Chidambaram had made dividends tax free. The other was the dropping of all IT notices on FIIs for misuse of the Mauritius route, which in fact many brokers felt, was pandering to FIIs.

NDA ignoring the Rural Sector: This is a very sweeping statement and contradictory to facts. The Kisan Credit Card, Grameen Rozgar Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana, the Self Help Group programme, the Antyodaya scheme, the annapurna scheme have all been great successes where huge investment have been made. According to World Bank statistics, we have seen a reduction in poverty by as much as 13 crore in the last 6 years, which, in my view is the biggest determinant of rural development. In fact the CPM politburo, which met recently, has pointed to the meagre allocation given to these key NDA programmes in the current Budget. It is utterly absurd to suggest that any government can afford to ignore rural India.

The Rural Voter rejected the NDA: This is once again a generalisation which has been proved to be erroneous by many analysts. Even Congress spokesmen have admitted that the BIMARU, which accounts for more than half of India’s poor returned less than 20 Congressmen, while they returned more than 90 BJP MPs.

Perhaps the Indian media should carry out a little more research before making such baseless generalisations in both television and print.

The author is Convenor, BJP Economic Cell and member National Executive