Hours after the release of BJP's manifesto called 'Sankalp Patra,' the Congress on Monday dubbed it as 'Jhansa Patra' (document of delusion), demanding that the ruling party should have released a 'maafinama' (apology) instead.
"At a time when there are 125 questions (featured in a document released at the event) looming over their manifesto for the last general polls, how can one believe in their Jhansa Patra," Congress communications in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala said at a press conference here.
Congress leader Ahmed Patel, who was also present on the occasion, said: "The difference between BJP manifesto and Congress manifesto can be seen firstly from the cover page. Ours has a crowd of people, and BJP manifesto has the face of just one man. Instead of a manifesto, the BJP should have come out with a 'maafinama."
"For its 2019 manifesto, the BJP has simply copy pasted its 2014 manifesto and changed all previous deadlines from 2019 to 2022, 2032, 2047, 2097. Luckily they didn't shift any deadlines to the next century," Patel quipped.
Coining a slogan to counter promises made in BJP's manifesto, Surjewala said: "Fir ek bar unhone jhansa patra kiya taiyar, desh ki janata kharij karegi is bar, aur jhola uthakar ho jao jane ko taiyar (They have once again prepared a document of delusion. People of the country would reject it, and you (Modi) should be ready to vacate the post of the PM)," he added.
Congress also released a document which, it said, contains 125 unfulfilled promised made by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2014 national elections. The document questions the central government on issues like unemployment, job creation, farm distress, black money, women safety atrocities on Dalits among others.
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Surjewala slammed BJP for failing to provide 10 crore jobs in the last five years as promised and cited the government data to claim that 4.7 crore jobs vanished the post demonetisation.
He said that BJP leaders while speaking at their manifesto launch did not mention even for once the words like 'job', 'employment,' 'demonetisation' and 'GST.'
Drawing a parallel between manifestos of the BJP and the Congress, Surjewala said that there was a contest between "plethoras of fake promises versus support of Nyay."
Terming the Prime Minister an emperor, he said that Prime Minister Modi was obsessed with "I, me and mine" and asked as to why Modi did not take any questions from media post their manifesto launch.