the goan I network
PANAJI
Congress national spokesperson Gourav Vallabh on Sunday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party for running away from answering questions on the state of the country’s economy and resorting to Pakistan baiting to divert the nation’s attention from the precarious situation.
Vallabh, a financial professional, said Modi was only interested in ‘headline management’ and shied away from tackling the real issues facing the country including joblessness, chaotic banking system and an economy that is steadily declining. “It’s strange that the prime minister goes to America and holds ‘Howdy’ (How Do You Do) event. Why doesn’t he go around the country and ask the youth who aren’t getting jobs ‘How do you do’,” Vallabh asked.
The Congress spokesman also blamed the Modi government in its first term of ruining the opportunity of taking the Indian economy to greater heights with the Goods and Services Tax initiative. “In a bid to manage the headlines and score brownie points, GST was implemented at midnight without being prepared and introducing multiple slabs of tax rates,” Vallabh said.
He also found faults in the fiscal deficit figures of the central government.
Meanwhile, Vallabh said the recent action of the RBI against the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank has brought back the dreaded memories of the demonetization period where people were forced to stand in long queues to withdraw a meagre Rs 2000 from their own accounts. “First the RBI said only Rs 1,000 can be withdrawn by depositors from the PMC bank. A day later, it modified and allowed withdrawals up to Rs 10,000,” Vallabh said.
The PMC Bank has up to Rs 600-crore deposited with the RBI and it is criminal to punish people who have deposited their tax-paid and hard earned money in banks by not allowing them to withdraw as per their needs. Vallabh also implied possible political motives to the action against PMC bank due to the ongoing elections in Maharashtra and claimed that a top BJP leader was on the BoD of the beleaguered bank. He also claimed that senior BJP leader from Maharashtra Kirit Sommaiya has also alleged that a huge fraud seems to have been hidden by the bank.
He demanded that the RBI either call the BoD of the bank and seek explanations for the discrepancies or file an FIR so the matter can be thoroughly investigated before it’s too late and they flee the country.
