Garibi Hatao relaunch, a classic case of political bankruptcy: BJP

New Delhi, Oct 9 (UNI) Assailing the Congress for relaunch of its Garibi Hatao programme of the 1970s, the BJP today said that it was a classic case of political bankruptcy which will not help uplift the poor and the downtrodden.

The people will be disappointed once again as the government will remove the poor and not the poverty, the BJP added.

BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said the government reviving its 30 year old programme and replace the word 'hatao' with 'unmoolan' was a candid confession that the ruling party had totally failed to eradicate poverty. The party did not have innovative effort to deal with the emerging situation where both farmers were caught in the cycle of unremunerative prices while the customers were facing unprecedented prices and inflation.

If the government is really interested in removing poverty it should help the farmers with right agricultural policy by according them remunerative prices for their produce, offer farm insurance to reassure them of their investments in the event of crop failure.

Till such time farmers and labourers will remain poor, he said adding the BJP wanted a national debate on agricultural policy and rising prices.

Referring to the plight of cotton growers in Maharashtra where numerous cases of farmer sucides had taken place, he said during the BJP-Shiv Sena regime in 1996, they getting Rs 2,500 a quintal of cotton while they were now getting a mere Rs 1,700 under the Congress-NCP regime which had kept down the Minimum Support Price deliberately.

The Planning Commission and Farmers Commission headed by Dr M S Swaminathan had attacked in a scathing manner, the government's failure to attain food security and poverty alleviation.

The UPA government was not serious about containing the prices of essential items for the consumers, who were hit hard at a time when the prices had risen by 20 to 30 per cent as against the rise in the income levels by six per cent.

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