Autocracy has replaced democracy: Ramesh on Modi govt

Criticising the Narendra Modi government on its third anniversary today, senior Congress leader and former Union minister Jairam Ramesh has said "autocracy" has replaced democracy under the BJP-led NDA dispensation.
He also accused the Modi government of re-branding and repackaging the welfare schemes which were initiated by the erstwhile Congress-led UPA government.
Ramesh, who had served as environment minister during 2009-2011, also launched a caustic attack on the green policies of the Central government, saying the senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar had tried to "destroy" environment when he was heading the ministry.
"In the last three years, the Modi government has failed on all fronts, be it economy, agriculture, generation of employment, internal security, Jammu and Kashmir issue and foreign policy.

"There is an increase in caste violence, atrocities against dalits and adivasis and vendetta politics is being adopted," Ramesh said while addressing a press conference.
Taking a swipe, he said the NDA government is celebrating the three years of "failure".

"The tune of democracy's 'shahnai' is replaced by mortar of autocracy in the last three years," Ramesh said.
Ramesh said the prime minister has a "self-centred" outlook and does not speak to anyone.
"The PM does not discuss or deliberate, he thinks that he knows everything, but it does not suit him as PM," the Congress leader said.
To back his argument, Ramesh said one can check the number of all-party meetings convened by the prime minister in the last three years.

"In the last three years, the PM invited (ex-prime minister) Manmohan Singh and (Congress president) Sonia Gandhi only once and that too for (passage of) the Goods and Services Tax Act," he said.
Ramesh said the NDA government was only "re-branding and repackaging with different names" the welfare schemes initiated by the former UPA government during its tenures.
"During the UPA rule, the then finance minister had floated a scheme called the 'Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account' and after coming to power, the Modi government re-branded and repackaged it as 'Jan Dhan Yojana'," he said.
Ramesh, however, conceded that the UPA dispensation had failed to effectively communicate about these schemes with people. "We started many schemes, but failed to give good names to them and also failed to communicate properly," he said while responding to a query.

Ramesh stressed unpredictability of electoral outcomes when he was asked about the prospects of his party in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
"An atmosphere is being created that the results of the 2019 elections are already decided. But let me remind you that in 2004, everybody including our Congress leaders had lost hope that Congress stood a chance against (then PM) Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but people voted BJP out," he reminisced.
Without taking any names, Ramesh said the current opponents of the Congress are different from those in 2004 as they now have "money" and are "ruthless while lacking any standards".

Accusing the NDA government of failure on all fronts, the former minister said, "During demonetisation, it was told that it is fight against black money, terrorism and counterfeit currency, but today neither prime minister nor finance minister is ready to share how much black money has been accounted for after the 'note bandi'".
He said the small and medium scale industries were hit due to scrapping of old notes.
Ramesh said though the government is patting itself on the rollout of GST, "it was the same Narendra Modi who had opposed the GST bill when UPA government was in power".

The Congress leader said nobody is investing in India and contrary to the promise made by the prime minister of creating two crore jobs, only 2.5 lakh employment opportunities have been generated in 2016.
"In the last three years, the environmental-related laws have been weakened. This government talks a lot about environment, but their actions are contradictory to their talks. Today, I am worried about environment as various laws related to environment are being destroyed," he said.
Targeting Javadekar, currently holding HRD portfolio, Ramesh said the BJP leader acted against safeguarding environment when he was handling the ministry.
"When he (Javadekar) was environment minister, he used to say that he has cleared scores of projects. I told him that his job was not to give (environmental) clearances but to safeguard environment," he said.

Ramesh said environment minister Anil Dave, who passed away recently, had supported him when he was looking after the portfolio.
"Dave had supported me on the issues of Lavasa, BT brinjal, but unfortunately he passed away and (I have) no idea what new minister will do," he said, adding that ministers in the present government have no say as they are there only for namesake.
When asked to comment on scrapping of the Special Planning Authority (SPA) status of Lavasa, the country's first private hill city project in Pune district, Ramesh said he had red-flagged the project in the past.

The SPA status of Lavasa was revoked recently by Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.