One reason Hindu fundamentalism or assertions should be welcomed. At least Maharashtra that houses India's money capital, Mumbai, has been spared of becoming bankruptcy.
There is a possibility of 'bankruptcy' for Congress Govt in Karnataka ... Himachal already is .... Yet populism guided Congress campaign in Maharashtra .... Thankfully voters rejected that !!
"Rahul Gandhi is so proud of these guarantees (of his Karnataka model) that he came to Maharashtra to boast about them and to promise that if a Congress government came to power in the state, the monthly pocket money that women are getting will be doubled from Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,000.
Reckless support for a reckless scheme that could someday soon bring Maharashtra to the edge of bankruptcy as Karnataka now seems," writes columnist Tavleen Singh.
The Congress government in that state is now so broke that it failed to pay one of its bills and Himachal Bhawan in Delhi was ordered to be forfeited by the Himachal Pradesh High Court.
Tavleen Singh also writes rather acidly: PM boasts of India becoming 3rd largest economy.
Does it matter if Delhi still breathes poisonous air?
"What difference will that make if the citizens of Delhi are forced to breathe poisonous air. If our sacred rivers continue to resemble drains. And if huge mountains of garbage continue being built on the borders of cities simply because we cannot afford modern methods of waste management."
However, when it comes to Gautam Adani-bashing, the Congress is doing its best and till now has hijacked the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament.
Tavleen Singh is hardly a pro-Modi writer and hence her observations should make 'sickular' sense too !!
"The Congress Party’s ‘socialist’ economic ideology has nearly always been founded on unwieldy welfare schemes that seek to put money into the hands of the poor, only because real ways to lift them out of poverty have not been found. When Narendra Modi became prime minister, he sneered at these schemes and, at one point, it seemed that he would put an end to them altogether.
It took a single taunt from Rahul Gandhi about him running a ‘suit-boot ki sarkar’ for Modi to go into reverse gear".
Late Arun Jaitley, as Modi's Finance Minister and a key player as eyes and ears of Modi in Delhi, had tried his best and called PM Modi's dispensation - "Soojh boojh ki Sarkar (A Govt of reasons and effective understanding)". But the damage was done by then.
The BJP had lost Delhi polls by a huge margin in February 2015.
Tavleen points out:
"Today, there is not a BJP government that is not dependent on winning votes by throwing money at the poor. So, in Maharashtra, as elections drew near, the government suddenly discovered that the state’s ‘beloved sisters’ needed to be given monthly pocket money.
The scheme was devised for women earning less than Rs 20,000 a month or nothing at all but already there are stories of women who earn much more benefiting as well.
"The truth is that these schemes have never done anything to end the scourge of poverty. All that they do is provide some relief to those who continue to live below the poverty line or just above it. They can do no more than this. The only way to really lift people out of poverty is to give them the tools to do this through their own efforts."
However, it must be acknowledged that Modi deserves credit for at least having made these welfare schemes less leaky by directly transferring money into the accounts of beneficiaries. But the result is the same as the result Congress achieved after decades of ruling India.
No significant reduction in poverty and no significant improvement in public services because after salaries of government employees have been paid and after the welfare schemes have been paid for, there is not much left to spend on building roads, drinking water facilities, or on improving the filthy conditions in which most Indians live, notes Tavleen.
ends
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