Senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister, P Chidambaram mocked the Prime Minister’s announcement of the 20 lakh crore economic relief package by terming it as a “headline and blank page”. He further said he is looking forward to the details that will be presented by the Finance minister on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation and announced a mega financial package that amounts to 10 percent of the GDP of the country. The 20 lakh package is the combined stimulus that will be presented by the government which includes the already announced packages by the Finance Ministry and the Reserve bank of India.
Responding to the announcement that took the social media into a storm, P Chidambaram said that he would count the every penny infused by the government into the economy and examine what the poor, hungry and the devastated migrant laborers would get after having suffered physically and mentally throughout the three phases of the lockdown. He wrote,
“Yesterday, PM gave us a headline and a blank page. Naturally, my reaction was a blank! Today, we look forward to the Finance Minister filling the blank page. We will carefully count every ADDITIONAL rupee that the government will actually infuse into the economy.”
Yesterday, PM gave us a headline and a blank page. Naturally, my reaction was a blank!
Today, we look forward to the FM filling the blank page. We will carefully count every ADDITIONAL rupee that the government will actually infuse into the economy.
— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) May 13, 2020
We will see what the bottom half will get, Chidambaram said
Explaining what he meant by counting every additional rupee, the former finance minister said that he and the Congress party would examine how the poor and the oppressed would benefit from the package. He further wrote,
“And the first thing we will look for is what the poor, hungry and devastated migrant workers can expect after they have walked hundreds of kilometers to their home states. We will also examine what the bottom half of the population (13 crore families) will get in terms of REAL MONEY.”
The other Congress leader, Jairam Ramesh, too slammed the Prime Minister’s address and called it a case of ‘classic NAMO’. He wrote in his tweet,
“Last night the Prime Minister did what comes to him best. Maximum packaging, minimum meaning. It was a case of classic NAMO. No Action Message Only.”
Source: Free Press Journal
