New Delhi:

Amid the Congress-BJP war over guarantees and the comments by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said the opposition party promises the Moon, but can’t deliver.

Speaking exclusively to NDTV, Mr Puri drew a distinction between what he called the ‘freebie’ model of the opposition and the ‘labharthi‘ (beneficiary) model of the BJP, which drives development. The minister also spoke about the alleged Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam in Karnataka and the derogatory remark made by a Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP against former BJP leader Shaina NC, who has now joined the Shiv Sena faction led by the party’s ally, Eknath Shinde. 

On the statements by Mr Kharge and PM Modi over the Congress president reportedly pulling up Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar for his comments hinting at a review of one of the party’s guarantees in the state, Mr Puri said, “A governance model which is successful, which delivers economic growth and welfare to the people is a governance model. Any other model, which bases itself on freebies, or on empty promises not grounded in reality, is not a governance model.”

Attacking Mr Kharge over the use of terms like ‘betrayal’ and ‘jumla‘ for the BJP government’s guarantees, the minister said the Congress leader must have been excited when he got the post of party president, but is now discovering the downsides. 

“Don’t make promises on which you can’t deliver. If you use words like review, it means you are not able to deliver. That is the hard truth. The Congress makes outlandish claims – it promises the Moon, and is not able to deliver, and then it gets caught. If you want to think in terms of imposing a tax on the construction of toilets in Himachal Pradesh, you are in trouble,” Mr Puri sneered. 

‘Writing On The Wall’

Taking a jibe at the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, the minister said that after the loss in Haryana, the Congress is seeing the writing on the wall for the upcoming Maharashtra and Jharkhand Assembly elections and is realising that its “khata-khat, phata-phat” model is failing. 

“So far as prices are concerned, after all the bluff, petrol and diesel are still Rs 10 more expensive in Congress-ruled states than they are in BJP-ruled states. There is a fundamental difference between the freebie models of the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party and the ‘labharthis‘ (beneficiaries) of a scheme like the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and the Ujjwala Yojana,” Mr Puri said. 

“In Punjab, the AAP promised 300 units of free electricity and families have two or three connections and rich people are misusing the scheme. Our model is that you come and get a solar panel from us at a reasonable cost. We will subsidise it a little, then you produce electricity. You can use 300 units for your consumption and the rest can be used for a charging station at your place or put back into the grid and earn some money. There’s a fundamental difference between giving somebody free fish to eat and teaching somebody how to fish so that he or she becomes a productive member of society,” he asserted. 

The minister said he had responded to all seven points made by the president of the Congress, which is “becoming a junior partner (in alliances) everywhere”. 

To a question on Mr Kharge claiming that ‘Modi’s guarantees’, which have been a key plank of the BJP, have become a “cruel joke” on Indians, Mr Puri said the joke is what the Congress is doing. 

“Modi’s guarantee carries weight. Modi’s guarantee carries credibility. Whatever the party has said in all its election manifestos since 2014, it has delivered on each one of them. An additional 4 crore houses are going to be built… on petrol prices, diesel prices, in all the PM’s guarantees, the welfare of the consumer is written in. In their model, they took an oil bond loan of Rs 1.41 lakh crore and we are having to pay back Rs 3.2 lakh crore. Mallikarjun Kharge, the honourable president of the Congress party, is being delusional,” he claimed. 

Corruption

In a scathing attack on the Congress over corruption, Mr Puri brought up the alleged MUDA scam, in which Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s wife was given prime plots of land. 

On Mr Siddaramaiah’s claim that the BJP left Karnataka plagued with “40% commission corruption” and his government had inherited poor fiscal health from the previous BJP regime in the state, the minister asked, “Did he also inherit the MUDA scheme? His wife got about 15 plots, did he also inherit that? They were in the opposition, if there was any act of omission or commission by the BJP, they could have questioned it then.”

“They (Congress) have been tainted by corruption for an extended period of time and when they have to answer questions, they start blaming each other. Now whether it is faultlines between Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar or both of them versus Mr Kharge, I don’t know. The Congress has to sort out this mess,” he said. 

Derogatory Remark

On the remark made by Arvind Sawant, an MP from the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena, against Shaina NC, who is a candidate for the Mumbadevi Assembly constituency from the Eknath Shinde-led Sena, Mr Puri praised his former party colleague for making her voice heard. 

“This kind of vocabulary is not acceptable anywhere. You don’t refer to an opposition candidate, a woman, in those terms. Using a word like that is objectifying a candidate… I would like to reach out to my friends like Priyanka Chaturvedi (an MP from Mr Sawant’s party) or others whom I know quite well… they should stand up and condemn this comment. I think Shaina NC did very well in questioning it. Somebody told me that he has apologised, but I think this needs to be pursued to its logical conclusion. And I’m sure that my sisters and daughters and our mothers in Maharashtra will give an absolutely befitting reply to this kind of misogyny,” he said.