New Delhi: Opposition parties hit out at the government on various issues like price hike, unemployment and privatisation of public sector undertakings in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
Participating in the debate on the Motion of Thanks on the president's address, Ripun Bora of the Congress slammed the government for allegedly failing to ensure the safety of the members of the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities and women and generate employment opportunities.
He noted that the income of around 84 per cent households in the country, which has a population of over 134 crore, witnessed a dip during the COVID-19 pandemic and rued that the issue found no mention in the president's address.
Bora said during the Manmohan Singh government, around 27 crore people were pulled out of poverty and the Narendra Modi regime has seen five crore people falling below the poverty line again.
"There is unemployment, prices are skyrocketing, but not a single word has been mentioned in the president's address about how this government plans to tackle the issue. Individual consumption has greatly declined, but there is no roadmap mentioned as to how to take care of it," he said.
The Congress leader alleged that while the previous prime ministers worked for creating the public sector undertakings (PSUs), the current government has been on a privatisation spree.
"In the eight years of the Modi government, not a single PSU has been created. All that it has done is to privatise 23 entities so far. This is what you (government) have done in the last eight years," he said.
Bora also trained his guns on the government on the issue of women safety and increase in crimes against SCs and STs.
He alleged that crimes against women and the backward sections of the society have increased during the Modi rule. The Rajya Sabha MP from Assam also claimed that the northeast has not received any big project from the Centre so far.
"The government says it is giving top priority to the development of the northeast, but the reality is that in Assam, two PSUs and two paper mills have been closed down. Not a single big project has been given to the area," he said.
Bora alleged that the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) has been grossly misused in the northeast.
He highlighted a recent incident in Nagaland where the Army ended up killing 14 civilians. "There is no update on the Naga peace talks. How is the government going to improve the situation in the region?" he asked the members of the treasury benches. The Congress leader alleged that the Centre used the Pegasus spyware to snoop on various people, including Army personnel and Opposition leaders.
Ajit Kumar Bhuyan (Independent) also attacked the government over the reduction in the earnings of 84 per cent of the households in the country.
He said while the majority of people suffered, the income of the government went up.
Bhuyan noted that there was no mention of the skyrocketing inflation in the president's address. "What happened to the doubling of farmers' income? I would like to know about the promise of two crore jobs," he said.