Opposition slams UPA govt over poverty figures

A day after the Planning Commission released its poverty figures, there was a political uproar slamming the Congress led UPA and the Planning Commission of being 'anti-people' and of being grossly 'unrealistic.' Faced with such political brickbats the Congress today attempted to defend the figures alleging that it was the UPA regime’s central schemes and largesse to states that had enabled people to rise above poverty.

Infact BJP leader Vijay Goel has mockingly sent off money orders to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, PM Manmohan Singh and Planning Commission chief Montek Singh Ahluwalia challenging them to spend a single day in Rs 33. The Opposition BJP has further slammed the figures as a 'political gimmick' and a 'conspiracy' of the Congress to deprive the poor of the benefits of government schemes.

The NCP which is a part of the UPA alliance also hit out at these statistics callinf for a new ceiling to gauge poverty.

Left parties have since yesterday been hitting out at the government absurd data. CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat said the figures are 'dubious' and 'discredited' and amounts to 'adding salt to the wounds of the poor'.

Rejecting the figures, BJD leader Jay Panda said a lot of work remains to be done in tackling poverty as the country still has a large population of poor people.     'There are many miles to go before we sleep,' he said.

Clarifying the 'misinformation' that the figures of Rs 33 for urban areas and Rs 27 for rural areas defining the poverty line were per capita income figures, Congress spokesperson Raj Babbar said, 'Income has been growing, so has consumption and so they are coming out of poverty.'

Taking heart from the fact that the number of poor people had declined to 21.9%  from 37.2% at the time when the UPA took charge Babbr added that it was the UPA which now intended to cover a whopping 67% of the population under its Food Security scheme- not just the 21% who were poor.

'This is because our aim is to ensure nutritious food which will alleviate a large segment from malnutrition, ' added Babbar. Reeling out individual state consumption figures, the spokesperson claimed that it was due to the Centre’s welfare schemes that the spending power had gone up and more people had been rid of poverty.