NDA catapulted India to ‘Bright Spot’; Congress reduced to ‘fringe’ party

New Delhi, May 26: Hailing NDA government’s policies on its fourth anniversary, BJP leader and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said India had transformed from being a part of the “fragile five” to the “bright spot” on the global economic scene under this regime and had established ‘scam-free governance’. But as the Congress is rejoicing its political move that helped it form government in Karnataka along with JD(S), Jaitley said the Congress party has moved into a ‘fringe’ party from a mainstream one. “The preceding 10 years of the UPA rule had unquestionably witnessed the most corrupt government since Independence,” said Jaitely in a Facebook post. He added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had created “transparent systems through legislative and institutional changes, which have given this country a scam-free governance.” Jaitley said that to clean up the economy, India had to transform from a tax non-compliant society to a tax-compliant society.

Taking a dig at the UPA government, he said: “During the UPA government, India had fallen off the global radar. In its initial years when the world economy was booming, India grew on the strength of global tailwinds. When the global situation became challenging, the UPA’s decisiveness and performance collapsed.” Taking a direct dig at Rahul Gandhi, Jaitley said the “Congress President must remember that taxes don’t go into the pocket of the government. They go back to the people for better infrastructure, better social sector expenditure and poverty reduction programmes.”

He emphasised that leaders of the industry are no longer seen repeatedly visiting the South Block, the North Block or the Udyog Bhawan. Environmental clearance files don’t pile up. And Foreign Investment Promotion Board has been abolished.

“A regional political party whose base at best is confined to a few districts was able to extract a Chief Ministership of the Congress to which the Congress meekly surrendered. It had even lost its bargaining capacity. It is today putting on a brave face in Karnataka where the losers are masquerading as a winner,” Jaitley said.

“A group of disparate political parties are promising to come together. Some of their leaders are temperamental, the others occasionally change ideological positions. With many of them, such as TMC, DMK, TDP, BSP and the JD(S), the BJP has had an opportunity to share power. They frequently change political positions. They have supported the BJP claiming that it is in larger national interest and then turned turtle and oppose it in the name of secularism. These are ideologically flexible political groups.” (IANS)