Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said that the government should not become a money lender in his first structured response to the Rs 20 lakh crore financial package offered by the Centre to reboot the economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic.He argued in favour of cash assistance instead of loans that are being announced and warned of an impending economic crisis, asking the government to consider rolling out Congress’ NYAY scheme temporarily in urban areas.
Gandhi insisted that the government must come up with a “national strategy for income.” During an interaction wit regional media via video confereance in New delhi on Saturday, he clarified that the scheme should be implemented, albeit temporarily in urban areas while MGNREG must be strengthened in the rural areas.
He, however, refused to indulge in a political blame game with the Modi government and said that his party will apply pressure “pyar se” on the government to accept their proposals. According to Gandhi, the most important thing now is to “fire demand and supply” and while infrastructure is certainly key, the government must give money in the hand of poor, echoing what many economists had been advocating. When asked about the lack of services offered by Maharashtra for migrant workers, Gandhi said, “There is a difference between Congress and the alliance government. if you look at Congress states like Chhattisgarh, you will see a very aggressive strategy. But in an alliance, we try to put pressure through conversations.” He refused to compare the current economic crisis with that of 1991 when the Congress government ushered in economic reforms.
