Opposition targets BJP over economy, Budget, polarisation

“Why don’t you impose a super-rich tax on those whose income multiplied during this Covid period,’’ he asked. “During the UPA, 23 crore people were brought out of poverty. Under the Modi government, 22 crore people have been pushed back into poverty,” he said, calling the Budget anti-farmer and anti-poor. On the Haridwar Dharam Sansad meeting in December, where several religious leaders allegedly made hate speeches, the Congress leader questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence and said the BJP government was trying to brand one community as “anti-national”.

Trinamool Congress MP Jawhar Sircar spoke about government’s National Monetisation Plan and the 1.75 lakh crore disinvestment target. He said: “Who has authorised you to sell the family silver? You have not earned it.”

Parties such as TRS and BJD – which don’t always oppose the BJP in Parliament – too hit out at the government. TRS MP K Keshava Rao said that there has been an increase in hate speeches. “Today our very polity, the idea of India is under threat,” he said, adding that the division between the secular Indian and radical nationalists had sharpened to a degree that they may no longer be able to reconcile. “I am speaking not as a politician but as a citizen. The polarisation may pay off for you today, but their minds will be so divided that you will not be able to bring them back together,” he said in Rajya Sabha.

BJD’s Sasmit Patra alleged that the Centre was favouring BJP states. “Our CM (Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik) has been asking that 6 lakh tribal families be included in the PM Awaas Yojana but for the past three years, the Awas portal has been shut. It only opens for states like Karnataka,’’ Patra said.