By IANS,
Panaji : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, though an economist by profession, doesn’t even merit 25 marks out of 100 for his handling of the country’s economy, BJP president Nitin Gadkari said Monday.
“Our economist prime minister does not even get 25 marks out of 100 for managing the country’s economy,” Gadkari said, adding that the Congress was misleading people on the issue of inflation.
“The prime minister says that inflation is everywhere. I have checked. Japan has zero percent inflation. Countries like US and China have inflation but only 3 per cent. But in India the rate of inflation is 18 percent (sic),” said Gadkari, who is here to campaign for the party ahead of the March 3 Goa assembly elections.
Comparing the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime to the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, Gadkari said that some of the grandest schemes floated by the BJP-led alliance like the prime minister’s rural road programme and the National Highway programme were free of corruption.
“In comparison, look at the 2G spectrum case. A scam of Rs.1.86 lakh crore. This is then CAG’s figure, not the BJP’s. And now (former communications minister A.) Raja says on affidavit that the (then) finance minister P. Chidambaram is also involved. We demand to know why is he (Chidambaram) outside when Raja is in prison,” Gadkari said.
On the Congress’s record in Goa, Gadkari said the Congress-led alliance government here had broken all records as far as corruption was concerned and was responsible for the multi-crore-rupee illegal mining scam.