Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday hit back at Congress President Rahul Gandhi for his speech in Madhya Pradesh’s Mandsaur district on Wednesday, saying “Is he being inadequately briefed or is he being a little too liberal with his facts”.
“Every time I listen to the view of Shri Rahul Gandhi, both inside and outside Parliament, I ask myself the same question How much does he know? When will he know?”, Jaitley said in a Facebook post titled How Much Does He Know?, in response to Gandhi’s speech in Mandsaur earlier in the day.
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“Listening to his speech delivered in Madhya Pradesh today reaffirms my curiosity about the answer. Is he being inadequately briefed or is he being a little too liberal with his facts,” he wrote.
On Gandhi’s accusation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has waived the loans of Rs 2.5-lakh crores of the 15 top industrialists, Jaitley said this is factually and completely false.
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The government, he said, has not waived a single rupee due from any industrialist. “The facts are to the contrary”.
“Those who owed money to the banks and other creditors have been declared insolvent and removed from their companies by IBC enacted by Prime Minister Modi’s Government. These loans were given largely during the UPA Government,” said Jaitley, who is recuperating from a kidney transplant surgery.
On Gandhi’s comment that Modi has given Rs 35,000 crore each to two diamond jewellers who have now escaped out of country, Jaitley said this is factually false.
He added that the banking fraud started in 2011 when the UPA II was in power and it was only detected during the NDA period.
On Rahul’s barb on unavailability of job in India, Jaitley said that “the latest GDP date has reemphasised India as the fastest growing economy in the world. There is a double digit growth in construction, expansion in manufacturing, an increased capital formation which indicates investment increase, large investment in physical infrastructure and increased investment in rural India. All these are job creating sectors”.
Slamming Rahul Gandhi’s promise of connecting farms and villages to cities, the Finance Minister said, “Madhya Pradesh had the worst set of roads in India when the Congress was voted out in 2003. Poor quality roads was one key reason for ousting the Congress. Thanks to Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Prime Minister Modi who during the NDA government, has tripled the investment in rural roads, in comparison to what the UPA spent, there is a revolution in the Gram Sadak Yojana”.