Holding Prime Minister Narendra Modi solely responsible for lowering the political discourse in the country, the Congress on Tuesday accused him of pursuing "politics of victim-hood" in order to hide his incompetence and non-performance of his government.
Wondering as to when will Modi stop playing the "victim card", the Congress asked him to answer about challenges faced by the country including the rupee touching a historic low and the ever-rising fuel prices.
"Why Modi needs to practise the politics of victim-hood when he is fundamentally and primarily responsible for finding solutions to the problems and challenges faced by the country?
"Modi has completely failed in addressing any of the issues and to hide his incompetence, to cover the non-performance of his government, he is playing the victim card to deflect the people's attention," Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari told the media here.
Pointing to Modi's numerous rallies for the Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Rajasthan, Tewari questioned as to why Modi never talked about his government's failure to fulfil the promise of generating 10 crore jobs, or why the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was attacked, or about the "irregularities" in the deal to procure Rafale fighter jets from France.
"The only thing we get to hear from him are variants of victim-hood. You were given an absolute majority to run the country and we hope in the remaining days (of campaigning) we will get to hear from you about the performance of your government," said the former Union Minister.
Talking about the heated political campaign that has often witnessed leaders indulging in personal mudslinging, Tewari blamed Modi for the political discourse going down on a daily basis.
"When the Prime Minister for the last 53 months has been lowering the level of political discourse on a daily basis, then rest of the leaders too feel that this ought to be the language," said Tewari, adding that Modi should pay heed to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's advice to him on the issue.
Singh on Monday had urged Modi to exercise "due restraint" in his public speeches observing that the Prime Minister must "set the example" for the people.
Tewari also targeted Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who in his latest blog post has come down heavily on the Congress over dynasty politics, saying "Congress considers only a great surname as a political brand".
"Why doesn't the Finance Minister blog on the tumbling rupee or why the RBI's autonomy was attacked? Why doesn't he write about why fuel prices are skyrocketing or why the current account deficit is constantly rising? When will he answer these questions?
"The problem is, the Finance Minister talks on everything which doesn't concern his Ministry...and the reason is clear, that under him the economy is in tatters," added Tewari.
--IANS
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