Shifting goalposts ingrained in BJP DNA: Congress

The Congress on Sunday attacked the Modi government over the BJP resolution adopted at a party meet here, saying "shifting goalposts is ingrained in the DNA" of the ruling party and was testament of "unpardonable failures" of the NDA.

In a statement here, Congress Communications Incharge Randeep Singh Surjewala said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to deliver a 'New India' in 60 months after coming to power in 2014.

"Having run a jumla government for 52 months, Modi-Shah duo is weaving another set of lies to befool the people. Their conspiracy will be exposed in 2019," he said.

"These 52 months have been a sordid saga of betrayals and backstabbing. The term 'jumla' has been embedded in the consciousness of people and it represents the character of the BJP leadership, which has mastered the art of deception, doublespeak, duplicity. A scheming BJP only knows to implement one scheme -- headlines management," he said.

Surjewala said that the resolution adopted at the BJP National Executive meeting does not talk of many of the key promises made by it in the run-up to the 2014 elections.

Referring to urban housing, he said the Modi government has built 3.93 lakh houses in urban areas in four years. "The BJP is now promising five crore houses by 2022. By this speed it will take almost 125 years to build those five crore houses," he said.

Surjewala said only 1.8 per cent of the funds released for Smart Cities endeavour have been utilised since launch in 2015.

He said that agriculture needs to grow at 12 per cent for the next few years to double farmers income in four years but it is presently growing at 4-5 per cent.

The Congress leader said that crude price was $107.09 per barrel days before the then UPA government demitted office in May 2014 but petrol was sold at Rs 71.41 per litre and diesel at Rs 55.49 per litre.

He said crude price was $73 per barrel on Friday but petrol was sold at Rs 79.99 per litre and diesel at Rs 72.07.

He claimed that excise duty on petrol had gone up by 211.7 per cent during the Modi government's rule and that on diesel by 443.06 per cent.

Surjewala said that rupee is at all-time low and had crossed Rs 72 to a dollar while the government had failed to keep its promises on creation of jobs.

--IANS

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