The Congress MP P Chidambaram on Tuesday took a jibe at the Central government for not having official data on COVID deaths due to oxygen shortage. He also charged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi lobs barb of 'tukde tukde gang' at Congress, but the government has no data to substantiate the allegations against the Opposition party.
Chidambaram said that "the government had in the past admitted not having data when a question was asked about the members of tukde tukde gang; the Minister had at that time said that there was no data available.".
The senior Congress leader further said that the government has "no data available on 'tukde tukde gang', on oxygen shortage deaths, on bodies flowing in rivers, on migrants walking back to homes". "It's 'No Data Available NDA government'," said Chidambaram in Rajya Sabha.
Responding to Prime Minister's attack on Congress for imposing Emergency, Chidambaram hit back and said that had Congress not been around "this House would still have been under the Government of India Act 1919 the Council of Princes".
"Had Congress not been there, this House would still be under Government of India Act 1919 the Council of Princes and instead of us the bejewelled rulers would have been sitting and praising Queen Elizabeth II. Thank God for Congress that we have a Rajya Sabha and we speak here," said Chidambaram.
"What I liked about the Budget speech was it was shortest in years. Thank you madam finance minister," he added.
He further said that the minister in the Budget said 60 lakh jobs will be created in five years, that is about 12 lakh jobs a year. The annual addition to the labour force is 47.5 lakhs, he added. "What would others do? Fry and sell pakoras," asked Chidambaram.
"On disinvestment, the target was fixed as Rs 1,75,000 Cr, and I had cautioned that it will be mindless disinvestment. Grateful to the government for accepting our caution and collecting only Rs 78,000 Cr against the target," he said.
Earlier in a scathing attack on the grand old party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that Congress's thinking has been hijacked by 'urban Naxals'.
Prime Minister said that if there was no Congress, there would have been no Emergency, no caste politics, and Sikhs would never have been massacred in Delhi and the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits would not have happened.
"It was said here, 'Congress na hoti, toh kya hota'. It's a result of the thinking, 'India is Indira, Indira is India.' I think 'Congress na hoti, toh kya hota' because Mahatma Gandhi wanted. He knew what will happen if they continue to be and he wanted to disband them beforehand," said PM Modi, in his reply to the debate on the motion of thanks to the President's address in Rajya Sabha.
( With inputs from ANI )
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