New Delhi: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on inflation, accusing him of being “insensitive” to the plight of common people.
Asking the Prime Minister to give reasons for this “insensitiveness”, Modi wondered whether he was only concerned about the common man and not the common women, who generally bear the brunt of inflation.
“I hope it is not because he (the PM) sought votes in the name of the common man. But the most affected due to inflation is the common women. Does he only think about the common man and not about the common women, as he is not concerned about them,” Modi said on the sidelines of the National Development Council (NDC) meeting here.
Modi also criticised him for “not uttering a single word to tackle inflation in his future plans on the 12th Plan. It is unfortunate that there is no word about inflation.”
Accusing the Centre of favouring certain states with lakhs and crores of rupees out of its discretionary fund, Modi questioned the norms adopted for such distribution of funds and demanded that the list of beneficiary states be made public.
Modi has also raised questions on the slow growth rate achieved by the country in view of the global trend and said, “the slowdown is all because of the faulty policies of the Government.”
Modi said, “Government has a dicretionary fund in lakhs and crores. They give package from this fund to whichever state they wish to. Therefore a White Paper should be presented about the norms for utilisation of thse funds.”
Modi said, “We want to know how much fund has been given to whom and what happened to the fund already given and where are the other funds.” He contested the Prime Minister’s contention that global recessionary factors had led to a slow down in the economy. “Did growth slow down in Gujarat. We achieved the target as set by the Planning Commission. If there was recession then Gujarat would have also suffered. The country is not progressing because of your own contradictions, confusions,” he said.
Criticising the prime minister for the “political discourses” in his speech at the NDC, in which he stated that all should work together for development once the elections are over, Modi asked whether Central government departments followed this principle with different states ? Will the opposition in Gujarat heed to your advice?” (PTI)