Congress Minimum income – a fraud on people : Bhunder

Chandigarh, March 25: Dubbing the Congress’s minimum income guarantee scheme as a mere poll hoax, Rajya  Sabha MP and SAD core committee member Balwinder Singh Bhunder said that Congress is making wild promises just to garner votes.

Bhunder said that the government would require nearly Rs.3.6 core to implement the proposal. “ The fraud that the Congress committed with people of Punjab is being replicated at the national level”, averred Bhunder , cautioning the nation of the nefarious designs of the Congress.

Reminding Congress president Rahul Gandhi that his grandmother too had promised to remover poverty in 1971 and given the slogan of “ Garibi Hatao”, nearly half a century ago.

Contrary to her promise, Bhunder said the poverty continued increasing during the successive Congress governments which never addressed the problem of ever increasing poverty. Moreover, the ever increasing inflation during the Congress rule coupled with slow “Hindu growth rate“ had increased the miseries of common man manifold.

Explaining the minimum income guarantee scheme, Rahul Gandhi has assured a minimum income of Rs. 72,000 per annum to 20 percent poorest of the poor people suggesting at least 5 crore families and a population of 25 crores.

Bhunder asked why the Congress government had failed to take such initiative during its ten year lone tenure from 2004 to 2014 if it were so sincere in removing poverty. Poverty in country is not a new phenomenon that surfaced during the last five years and it had been equally acute or perhaps more during the Congress regime.

What caused the Congress to wake up to the poverty on the eve of elections, asked Bhunder suspecting the very sincerity of the Congress.

Pooh-poohing Rahul’s idea, Bhunder said that if the Congress was so sincere to implementation of minimum income guarantee, the party should have made albeit a humble beginning, by urging the Congress ruled states to start a pilot project. “ Tackling poverty is not only the responsibility of the Union government but of the state government too,” asserted Bhunder.

Bhunder  said that SAD- BJP government in 2007 had launched the Atta Dal scheme to mitigate hardships faced by common man or earlier offered free power to farmers or started “ Shagun schemes” top help poor Dalit families on the eve of their daughters’ marriage  from state’s own resources. Unfortunately, the present Congress government has either stopped or curtailed these schemes or slowed down their disbursal.

“ If  Congress had such fantastic idea of assaulting the poverty, why it failed to implement it during its previous tenure or in Congress ruled states”, questioned Bhunder.