Congress terms Modi’s New Year speech ‘empty’ and ‘hollow’

Congress said that Narendra Modi’s speech on New Year’s eve was made keeping in mind the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Goa.

Panaji, Jan 2: Demonetisation has sent India 30 years back in time, the Goa unit of the Congress said and claimed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech on New Year's Eve was a damp squid.

"We were expecting some good news for the people. What I find (instead) are petty announcements keeping in mind assembly elections, in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Goa. The speech was empty and hollow," Goa Congress president Luizinho Faleiro told a press conference on Monday at the Congress state headquarters in Panaji.

Faleiro also said the central government's model of governance was as "bankrupt" as the Gujarat model of governance, which was used by Modi to project his prime ministerial credentials.

The Congress leader said the BJP-led coalition government in Goa was fraught with misrule and claimed the leaders of an alliance partner in Goa, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, had themselves criticised the functioning of the state government on repeated occasions.

"Goa has seen misrule for the last five years of the BJP. They have destroyed whatever was there in Goa," he said. "According to one of the senior members of the BJP-led cabinet for the last five years, the BJP has taken Goa 10 years behind. Instead of going forward they are going behind," Faleiro said, quoting former Public Works Department Minister Sudin Dhavalikar who was sacked by Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar last month, following the criticism of his leadership.

Modi, had on December 31, 2016, announced several schemes for farmers, senior citizens and pregnant women and had also addressed about the effects of demonetization in the country.

IANS