Sitharaman hits back at Rahul, asks " What promises has government broken?"

The minister said the government has kept all promises and that it has never overlooked malpractices.

New Delhi, May 16: Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday wondered what promises the NDA government has broken and how it has betrayed the people in the last three years as has been alleged by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi.

She was responding to Gandhi's statement that there is nothing to celebrate for the BJP-led NDA government as the three-years were marked by "betrayal" of the mandate, "broken promises" and "non-performance".

"Non performance," she retorted, questioning "who is talking about this? Somebody who was part of the 10-years of the non-performing government which led to the whole world talking about us as a government in freeze. We were almost written off".

"I am shocked at all three descriptions. Either he is ill informed or does not know what he is trying to tell us. I completely reject it," she told PTI in an interview.

Sitharaman said that on each of the description, the Congress leader has gone "grossly wrong". She further said, "Where is the betrayal? We are keeping up every word mentioned in our manifesto".

The minister said the government has kept all promises and added it has never overlooked malpractices. When asked about former finance minister P Chidambaram's statement that the government was trying to silence him by using CBI against his son - Karti Chidambaram, she said the government is allowing the law to take its own course.

"These are investigations based on some prima facie information with which ED or CBI or concerned departments move forward," she said, adding that if the departments are taking actions based on an information, "I will see it only as that and nothing more".

Earlier in the day, the CBI today carried out searches at several places linked to the former finance minister and his son over alleged favours granted in foreign investment clearance to a firm, INX Media, in 2007.

"The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends...The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations," the senior Congress leader said in a statement in Chennai.

PTI