New Delhi: In a scathing criticism of the BJP manifesto, the Congress on Monday said the ruling party has "simply copy-pasted" its 2014 poll document and changed all previous deadlines.
Dubbing the ruling party's manifesto, a 'balloon of lies', senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said the manifesto is a document of 'lies' vs NYAY and instead of releasing a manifesto, BJP should have come out with a 'maafinama' (letter of apology) for deceiving people of the country.
"Our's has a crowd of people, and BJP manifesto has the face of just one man. For its 2019 manifesto, BJP has simply copy pasted its 2014 manifesto and changed all previous deadlines from 2019 to 2022, 2032, 2047 and 2097. Luckily they didn't shift any deadlines to the next century," Patel said while taking a dig at PM Modi.
Patel also hit out at the BJP leaders for not taking any questions after releasing the manifesto and compared that with Congress president Rahul Gandhi's interaction with journalists after releasing the poll document.
"After we presented our manifesto, we held a detailed Q&A session. And immediately after BJP presented its manifesto, all of their leaders went home without even taking a single question. No answers on their 5 years? It is this arrogance which will bring them down on May 23rd," Patel said.
Eyeing another stint in power, the BJP on Monday made a string of promises, including expeditious construction of a Ram temple, a firm hand in dealing with terrorism and doubling farmers' income in the next three years.
Slamming the BJP, the Congress leader Randeep Surjewala dubbed the BJP's Sankalp Patra a 'lie'. The BJP government at the centre had failed to mention anything about "employment and jobs" in its manifesto and in its manifesto for 2019 poll, the jobs didn't find any mention, Congress spokesperson Surjewala told reporters.
Taking a jibe at GST, Surjewala said, "The BJP promised "One Nation, One Tax" but changed it "900 times". Despite that, there has been a shortfall of Rs 1 crore in revenue collection and Angel Tax caused over 70 per cent start-up issues."