We will 'remonetise' what Modi 'demonetised', says Rahul Gandhi
New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said the 'Nyay' scheme will remonetise what Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetised and asserted that his party's anti-poverty programme has thrown the BJP into total disarray
In an exclusive interview to PTI ahead of the 17th general election beginning April 11, Gandhi said the 'Nyay' scheme has the twin objectives of giving money to the 20 per cent poorest families in India and remonetising the economy "damaged" by demonetisation.
"What the PM has done over the past five years is to remove all money from the economy with failed policies like demonetisation and a poorly executed Gabbar Singh Tax (GST). Informal sectors have been badly hit.
"The aim of the 'Nyay' scheme is two-fold. First is to guarantee a minimum income to the bottom 20 per cent families. The second is to remonetise the economy that has been demonetised by Modiji," Gandhi said.
The Congress chief said there is a reason why the party christened the scheme 'Nyay', which translates to justice in Hindi.
"There is another aspect to calling the scheme 'Nyay'. Why have we chosen to call this scheme 'Justice'? Because over the last five years, Mr Narendra Modi has simply snatched from poor and given nothing back.
"He has taken away from the farmers, he has snatched from the small and medium businesses, he's taken away from the unemployed youth, he has extinguished the savings of mothers and sisters of this country. We want to return to India's deprived sections what Modiji has snatched from them, Gandhi said.
Terming 'Nyay' (Nyuntam Aay Yojana) a "game changer" and a "final assault" on poverty, Gandhi said the scheme is "fiscally perfectly doable and will not be implemented "rashly like demonetization and GST of the BJP".
Asked about apprehensions of some economists that 'Nyay', which entails an expenditure of Rs 3.6 lakh crore annually, could aggravate India's fiscal deficit position, Gandhi said, "No, that's not right."
He said the party consulted a large number of economists and experts, studied numerous papers and other research material on this subject and run an extensive financial modelling exercise before deciding to include the plan in its Lok Sabha manifesto.
To a question on the scheme being prima facie populist, Gandhi said "it is not a populist measure as projected by some critics".
"If giving out Rs 3.5 lakh crore to 15 people by Narendra Modi is not considered populist, why should this be as it is aimed at benefitting the poor," he said.
"Is it only the crony capitalist friends of Mr Modi who are to benefit from government schemes? I'm only asking for fairness, for justice, or 'nyay' for India's poor. There's nothing populist about that," he countered.
Taking a swipe at Modi, who announced the demonetisation of high value currency notes in a surprise move in November 2016, Gandhi said, "We're not rash. We don't take steps like demonetisation and GST without consultations, without conferring with the experts. We have vetted this, tested this, and fiscally 'Nyay' as a scheme is completely doable."
The Congress president did not give a time line on when the party planned to make India poverty free and said 'Nyay' will first be tested through a pilot to "smoothen out any flaws".
"We're not going to do it the way GST was done. We are first going to run a short pilot project to smoothen out any flaws in the implementation process and then roll it out nationwide. We're also going to set down a robust way of identifying the beneficiaries, so that no deserving family is left out," he said.
Asked if the pilot will be run in Congress-ruled states, Gandhi said experts will decide on that.
"This is for the experts to decide. In the 10 years of the Congress-UPA government, we took 14 crore people out of poverty net. Our goal now is to finish the job," he said.
Gandhi added that 20 per cent to 22 per cent families are living in poverty even today. Many of them have been pushed into this cycle by the prime minister's demonetisation scheme and 'Gabbar Singh Tax' (GST), he noted.
"Our goal is to completely eliminate poverty from India," he said, describing 'Nyay' as the final assault on poverty.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
