Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Derek O'Brien on Wednesday launched a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi government in the Rajya Sabha, accusing it of committing "fraud with the poor and youth" on jobs and "spitting on the Constitution" by moving bills for passage without proper legislative scrutiny.
Participating in the debate on the bill to provide 10 per cent reservation to the economically backward among the upper castes, he said the government had brought the legislation as "acknowledgment of guilt" for not creating jobs.
"One fine winter morning, you wake up and decide 'let's change the Constitution today'... What are you doing to the Constitution? You are spitting on the Constitution," he said.
He said the previous governments got 65-70 per cent bills passed after legislative scrutiny but the record of this government was only 20 per cent. "This is disrespect to the Constitution."
Targeting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he referred to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's remarks in the run-up to the Gujarat Assembly polls in which he had termed Congress efforts to give quota to Patidar community a "constitutional impossibility".
He said the same BJP leadership had now brought the quota bill to give reservation beyond 50 per cent.
The Trinamool Congress member referred to various government schemes such as Skill India and said they were all "Cheat India". He termed demonetisation as the "largest man-made disaster in the last 100 years".
Derek O'Brien said that the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal had tripled income of farmers but the Modi government was unable to keep its promises.
He said that allocations by the Central government for schemes aimed at girl child were a pittance compared to what the West Bengal government -- led by his party -- had done.
He also targeted Modi over an interaction with students in 2013, when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat and quoted him as saying: "If there are job opportunities for all...who would ask for reservations?... It's because of our economic system which is a scarcity system. We need to move from a system of scarcity to a system of plenty."
"What happened since then," O'Brien asked.
--IANS
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