Modi govt failed to deliver on promises, alleges Congress MP Pramod Tiwari

Senior Congress leader Pramod Tiwari accused the Narendra Modi government on Tuesday of betraying people during its 10-year rule, saying it failed to deliver on promises, whether on bringing back black money, stopping corruption or controlling price rise.

Participating in a discussion in the Rajya Sabha on the Motion of Thanks for the president's address to a joint sitting of Parliament, Tiwari said the prices of several commodities have touched a multi-decade high, but the issue found no reference in President Droupadi Murmu's speech.

Similary, there is no roadmap to address the problem of unemployment, the rate of which is also at a multi-year high, and there was no mention of it in Murmu's address, the Congress leader said.

He said the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to deliver on any of the promises it made to people and it reflected in the results of the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls, where the party lost a significant number of seats.

"You must ponder on why you could not get 400-plus seats," Tiwari said, referring to the BJP's slogan of "400 par" (the NDA will win more than 400 seats).

The Congress leader also lamented that there was no reference to the Manipur issue in the president's speech.

He said the government had promised that the prices of petrol and diesel will be reduced, but that did not happen despite the falling prices of crude oil in global markets.

Tiwari further said the government failed to achieve the objectives of the 2016 demonetisation as there was no check on terrorism, corruption and black money.

He also took on the government for failing to bring back economic offenders who have fled the country.

Participating in the discussion, Ashokrao Shankarrao Chavan of the BJP said a wrong narrative was set during the Lok Sabha election that the saffron party would change the Constitution.

While lauding the government for raising the minimum support price (MSP) for crops, Chavan also highlighted that global warming is affecting farmers.