Patna. Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said the Congress is spreading lies that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will change the Constitution after coming to power again and claimed that the same family Congress “failed” to protect the constitution of its own party.
Speaking to reporters in Patna on Tuesday, Sitharaman said, “Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leaders are spreading lies that NDA will change the Constitution after coming to power. How can he say such a thing when Congress leaders failed to protect the constitution of their own party.” He said, “They should remember how former Congress President Sitaram Kesari was locked in a room to prevent any hindrance in the rise of Sonia Gandhi in the party.” He also alleged that RJD and Congress are trying to snatch the reservation of Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) and give it to Muslims.
Sitharaman said, “They want to give reservation on the basis of religion only to benefit Muslims, which is against the Constitution. Congress and RJD are trying to snatch reservation from SC, ST and OBC and give it to Muslims. “The Congress party has already done this in Karnataka.” He said, “When Congress was in power, it never gave proper respect to Baba Saheb Ambedkar. He was given Bharat Ratna in 1990. He is not fit to speak about the Constitution or Baba Saheb. Prime Minister Modi ji has taken many steps for the upliftment of the weaker sections of the society and for the overall development of the country. The Finance Minister said that rapid development of the eastern states has always been the top priority of the NDA led central government.
The BJP leader said, “The central government wants that the eastern states – Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha… should become engines of development for the entire country with the aim of making India a developed country by 2047.” He said, “As far as Bihar is concerned, before 2005, the growth of Bihar was adversely affected due to “Jungle Raj”. The per capita GDP in Bihar was Rs 21,282 in 1991, which was higher than Odisha, but it declined to Rs 14,209 during Jungle Raj. Bihar’s per capita GDP declined by about 33 percent. I would like to say that after 2002, the per capita GDP in Bihar increased to Rs 37,000.” Sitharaman said that the NDA government has so far provided 40 lakh houses to poor people under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (both rural and urban).