‘Modi has to worry about 2019’
New Delhi: “Two years without even two smiles. There are miles to go,” says NCP leader D P Tripathi, as he, along with some other opposition parties like Congress and BJD, commented on the performance of the Narendra Modi government and criticised its celebrations.
Tripathi, Congress spokesman Manish Tewari and BJD leader Tathagata Satpathy, found faults with the NDA government as they set their eyes on the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. “Take only one issue — price rise, which affects the common people. Narendra Modi spoke much on the issue during campaigning (for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls). Now what is happening,” asked Tripathi.
“Take industry or agriculture, which sector is happy? If you see the happiness index, you will see there is no happiness, as nothing is happening,” the NCP leader said. Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said that in the last two years, people have “seen through” the Prime Minister and in 2019, people will have the “last laugh”, he said.
“In the past two years, the NDA government ripped the social fabric, slayed institutions, demolished federalism, sunk the economy and shrunk India’s emerging international profile. That is the sum and substance of ‘acche din’,” he alleged. Sathpathy said, “In my opinion, he (Modi) has missed the Airbus, with capital ‘A’.
Because of this, Modi has to worry about 2019”. Taking a dig at the Prime Minister’s foreign visits, he said he should have “stayed home and tried to set things right here.
According to Satpathy, the Modi government “does not know the art of keeping people’s desires satisfied at the ground level and the country has been mis-served due to its extremely bad managerial skills”. He said “The NDA government has been moving in a pro-corporate and anti-people direction from the beginning.”
Referring to auction of coal blocks, he said the government might be claiming high revenue but there has been “utter confusion”. “It faced a major failure in coal block auctioning,” he claimed. “The government could have given cheaper coal to power plants in return for inexpensive energy. That move has come to a cropper mainly because of bad planning and no foresight.
“Extremely low petroleum prices was a great opportunity to give cash in the hands of the poor by means of enabling savings,” Sathpathy said. Kishore Chandra Deo of Congress compared Modi to “double-headed temple of Janus, the Greek god who speaks with one face and acts with another”. He said Modi will be “out” in 2019, if not earlier. (PTI)