“Why didn’t anyone from the minister or any officer stand up and say we reject the statement? RBI is supposed to be cautious, conservative and neutral, but you are cautious, you are conservative, and you are not neutral at all,” Chidambaram alleged.On the proposed ELI, he said, “Earlier, there was a production-linked incentive. When you introduced the ELI, it must be for some reason. And I suspect the reason was that the PLI scheme did not create the kind of jobs that you wanted to create”.While acknowledging ELI is an interesting idea, he expressed doubt that it will be able to place 290 lakh people under it.It should not turn out to be another election “jumla’ like your 2 crore jobs a year”, Chidambaram said.He also questioned the government’s methods of calculating economic growth, saying the claim of high growth has not been felt by the common people on the ground.On the tax relief proposed for individuals in the Budget, he said the benefit will be only for only 2-3 crore people and asked what relief has been given to those in irregular jobs and daily labourers.Highlighting the income disparity across the population, he also said India continues to languish in the global hunger index.”The action that the government has taken, namely giving free food grain to 81 crore people is a tacit admission that on the hunger index we are very very low. Your own action shows that people cannot afford food,” Chidambaram said.The senior Congress leader also attacked the government for destroying federalism by picking and choosing among states for grant of relief.”I don’t grudge at all that you are giving relief to Andhra Pradesh, or Bihar, but what about the other states? We are a federal country. This is the death knell of federalism if you pick and choose among states. You are the Union of India, you are the Union government, you are the government of all the states. You cannot pick and choose one state and deny relief to another state,” Chidambaram asserted.
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