Rallying behind the government, the BJP today decided to launch a counter-offensive against the opposition "disinformation campaign" on the controversial land bill with Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserting that his growth model was pro-poor.
At the two-day National Executive meeting, which concluded today without party patriarch L K Advani giving his customary address, Modi emphasized on the growth model that his government was trying to pursue through creation of jobs and anti-poverty programmes to benefit the poor.
There was no official word on why Advani did not make a speech, which he has done in all the Executive meetings barring in 2013, but there was speculation that he was not keen to speak as he felt marginalised since the emergence of Modi. There were also reports that he resented suggestions that his speech would be vetted before its presentation.
Briefing the media, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley merely said "internal decision-making is something we don't discuss with the media. How we settle the programme of the party, I am sure, even in the world of RTI and transparency, we can't share it with you."
Giving details of the Prime Minister's speech, he said its whole emphasis was that the kind of growth model the government was trying to pursue was that the economy should grow and the benefit of the enriched economy must then percolate to the poor.
It will be both by way of jobs, new job opportunities and also by way of the poverty alleviation programmes. Additional resource the state will provide," he said.
On the land bill, Jaitley said a large part of the discussion was that it will help in building rural infrastructure, particularly roads, irrigation, electrification, housing for poor, which, on the face of it, helped the weaker sections and rural India.
