New Delhi. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday hit back at the Congress for comparing the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government with the East India Company, saying that a person who uses such language can be called a ‘Western’ person in parliamentary language. The party also said that the Indian economy is better than the member countries of ‘BRICS’ during the tenure of the Modi government.
The member countries of BRICS mainly include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. On January 1, 2024, four new member countries, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, were included in this inter-governmental organization. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Baijayant Panda said that many countries have been badly affected by the Kovid epidemic, but India has effectively reduced its fiscal deficit after this epidemic and today the Indian economy is better than the member countries of BRICS. He said that due to the effective measures taken by Nirmala Sitharaman as Finance Minister, India’s fiscal deficit has come down to 4.9 percent this year and the target is to bring it down to 4.5 percent by next year.
He started his address by retorting to the statement of Congress member Charanjit Singh Channi, in which the Congress MP compared the Modi government to the East India Company and said, “There is no difference between them (the ruling party) and the British, the only difference is the colour. First they came to power and then through power they are getting their people to take over the industries of the country.” In his address, however, Panda said without naming Channi, “We have heard the opposition’s statements related to the East India Company a while ago, but in parliamentary language we can call the person who uses such language a ‘Western’ person.” Describing this budget as very comprehensive, he said that its scope is very large. He said that during Sitharaman’s tenure as Finance Minister, India has become the fastest growing economy and international economic experts are confirming this.
Meanwhile, the opposition objected and said that these figures were presented in a distorted manner. On this, Panda said that the organisations calling these figures ‘manipulated’ are those whose top officials are among those who prepare the manifesto of the opposition.
Talking about the ‘Purvodaya Mission Scheme’ announced in this budget, Panda said that Prime Minister Modi has repeatedly said that India will not become developed until the previously deprived states are included in the mainstream of development and many states including West Bengal are included in the Purvodaya scheme.
Participating in the discussion, Sunil Tatkare of the Nationalist Congress Party said that the opposition has no right to talk about the Constitution because its governments had unnecessarily imposed President’s rule in many states. He said that whatever the Modi government has done for Indian farmers is very commendable. Alok Kumar Suman of the Janata Dal United praised the announcements made for Bihar in the budget and said that Bihar is lagging behind in progress compared to other states of the country and it should get more help.