Congress senior leader, the former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, on Wednesday condemning the government policies unleashed a scathing attack on the government’s economic policies in Rajya Sabha. Stepping into the debate on the Union Budget, Chidambaram listed five demands, higher FCI floor prices, and assured crop prices as the deputy sought Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s reaction on the matter.
Chidambaram also complained about the government that while highlighting many positive factors of the economy, the public was suffering high unemployment and inflation, which made them feel there was no development but stagnation. He suggested triple raising the national minimum wage of all jobs to ₹400 per day and demanded the central government to fix the support prices of crops legally.
Apart from these demands, Chidambaram urged the Government to scrap the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admitting students to state-owned medical colleges due to controversies and alleged cases of leakage of question papers. His main argument, which was also shared by a few, suggested that states that do not support NEET should be given an opportunity to evade the policy.
Additional Demands by Chidambaram
Chidambaram also sought the cancellation of a new policy for the recruitment of personnel for the defense forces known as ‘Agnipath’ and debt write-off of education loans unpaid till March 2024. He threatened that these demands could further be heard not only in Parliament but also all over the country if not met.
The Congress leader also took a dig at Sitharaman for not finding a place for Tamil Nadu or giving a quotation from Tamil great Tiruvalluvar in her budget speech. He criticized allocations in the budget, terming them as being partial, with the government biased in favor of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar and against other states.
Chidambaram has filed the next complaint to the government and accused it of low inflation rate estimation, and also criticized the RBI stating that there is no unemployment problem. He cited frequently areas such as Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh manifested severe employment trouble due to the large number of qualified applicants seeking low-skilled careers.
Check here for the latest updates in Hindi!