Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday rubbished the Centre’s claim that it had provided 10 per cent of the GDP as a relief to people amid lockdown and claimed that in reality less than one per cent of the GDP is being given, that too in loans.
During his online media interaction, the Congress leader said, “There were multiple press conferences about the package. The Prime Minister said 10 per cent of GDP but the reality is that less than one per cent of the GDP is being given and mostly through loans. Hardly any cash has been given.” “Congress party is running some states and we are giving cash to people. We are directly giving cash to farmers and labourers but we are not getting any support from the Central government. It is becoming extremely difficult for our states to function with adequate support from the Central government,” he added.
On being asked that if it was a mistake of prioritising health over the economy, the Congress leader said, “I don’t think it is either health or economy. We are smart enough and intelligent enough that we work out a path through that will create a successful compromise between health and economy. However, India has been facing a very serious unemployment problem and this is not new. You have heard of Make in India and some of those initiatives but they did not yield result what was expected.”
“Now there is a new element to this unemployment. We were already struggling and suddenly we have hit corona problem which has multiplied this unemployment problem as you can see businesses are shut down and I am sorry to say as a national leader but many small and medium businesses are going to go bankrupt. People will get unemployed and that’s why are saying again and again that injection of money is required to MSMEs and injection of money is required to poor people and it will be fatal if we don’t do it,” added Gandhi.
On being asked about the issue with China and Nepal on the border he said, “Details of the border issue, what happened and how it happened, the government should tell the nation in a transparent manner. What happened in Nepal, what is happening in Ladakh, and how it is happening… there should be transparency.” (ANI)