Senior Congress leader and General Secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of trying to give a communal angle to the Congress manifesto. The Congress leader also accused PM Modi of raising some issues that are not in the manifesto.
“BJP is in trouble. The PM is baffled. Since April 19, he has been trying to take the whole agenda in a different direction. He tried to give a communal angle to our manifesto, after which, he raised some issues which are not there in our manifesto… He is publicising our manifesto during his election rallies. Even though this publicity is wrong, it is based on lies, still, this is the first time that the PM is publicising the opposition’s manifesto,” he said.
Jairam Ramesh challenged the PM’s claim that their manifesto talks about wealth redistribution, stating that there is not one word in their 50-page manifesto that hints at wealth redistribution.
“The PM says that our manifesto talks about wealth redistribution. I challenge him that in our 50-page manifesto, there is not one word that hints at wealth redistribution,” he said.
He mentioned that the Congress manifesto does not include any mention of inheritance tax, hence, it is not part of their agenda.
“I want to clarify one thing. There is no mention of inheritance tax in our manifesto, it is not our agenda. The truth is, that in 1985, PM Rajiv Gandhi abolished the inheritance tax.. We never mentioned anything about inheritance tax, and it is not a part of our agenda,” he said.
