With Prime Minister exhorting party leaders to take his government's initiatives to masses, BJP will launch country wide campaign between September 25 and October 2 to push Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY), especially among the low strata of society.
Seeking to buttress its pro-poor credentials, BJP is keen to involve the poorest section of society, ranging from rickshaw-pullers to road side vendors, in Modi's ambitious scheme aimed at funding business schemes of the weaker and deprived people.
Three products available under the PMMY are Shishu, Kishor and Tarun with the first covering loans up to Rs 50,000 while the second and third covering loans between Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh, and Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh respectively.
September 25 is the birth anniversary of the party's ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay while October 2 is Mahatma Gandhi's date of birth.
Banks have been asked to disburse about Rs 1.22 lakh crore loan under the scheme during the current fiscal.
BJP secretary Shrikant Sharma said party was keen that 60 per cent of the fund be allotted to the poorest under the Shishu category.
Describing the initiative as yet another Modi government's effort to help the poor, Sharma took a dig at Congress, wondering if pro-poor works like Jan Dhan and MUDRA schemes or the implementation of One-Rank-One-Pension for the ex-servicemen were "hawabaazi", Sonia Gandhi's barb at Modi.
"Is this hawabaazi (empty talk) or dagabaazi (betrayal)? Hawabaazi is what Congress did during its rule for so many decades as it never implemented OROP, not bring banking facilities to doors of the poor while the Modi government did it in merely 18 months," Sharma said.
After Sonia Gandhi's swipe on Tuesday that Modi's poll promises were nothing more than "hawabaazi", the Prime Minister hit back today, coining the term "hawalabaaz" (scamsters) to get even.
