Congress President Rahul Gandhi said that grave injustice was done to India's poor for the last five years, but his party's government would do "Nyay" (justice), referring to the party's minimum income scheme promise.
"The Narendra Modi government had in the last five years done a lot of injustice with the poor, tribals and Dalits but the Congress has prepared a programme of justice for them. The Modi government opened bank accounts for people, but the Congress will deposit cash in them," he said at rallies in Madhya Pradesh's Shahdol and Jabalpur lok Sabha constituencies.
Taking a dig at Modi's 2014 poll promise that Rs 15 lakh would be deposited in every Indian's bank accounts, Gandhi said that nobody had seen any of this money. "But when Congress comes to power, 25 crore people of the country will benefit. Five crore families will have Rs 72,000 deposited in their accounts every year," he said.
"Congress has promised every poor family will get Rs 6,000 in their bank account every month, amounting to Rs 72,000 per year. These accounts will be names of the families' women members since they know the importance of money. In this way, each family will get Rs 360,000 in five years."
On the apprehensions aired by various other parties to the Congress' proposed scheme, Gandhi said: "In the recent assembly elections to Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the Congress had promised to waive off farmers' loans. As soon as the Congress governments took over, the loans were waived.
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"In the same way, the amount of Rs 6,000 will be credited in the accounts of the poor," he said.
"The BJP and Prime Minister Modi have asked where the money for this scheme will come from, but we want to say that there is actually no shortage of money in the country. The present (Modi) government was waived of Rs 550,000 crore loans of top businessmen. Congress will not follow suit but it will give the due amount to the poor," the Congress chief added.
--IANS
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