Hitting back hard at the BJP’s allegations that his party’s manifesto speaks about wealth redistribution and an inheritance tax, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said that the ruling party is talking about the document even without reading it and every charge levelled on this front is “completely concocted by its propaganda machinery”.
Speaking exclusively to NDTV on Wednesday, the three-time MP and candidate from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency also doubled down on his party’s charge that the NDA is seeking 400 seats because it wants to change the Constitution, his differences with Hindutva and how the BJP has hit a ceiling in terms of its vote share in Kerala.
The BJP, led from the front by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been consistently saying that the Congress manifesto speaks about taking people’s money and jewellery, including ‘mangalsutras’ – a sacred ornament in Hinduism symbolising that a woman is married. On some occasions, the PM also said that the Congress will conduct an X-Ray of people’s homes to get to their possessions and that these will then be redistributed, including among Muslims.
When Tharoor – who was also part of the manifesto committee – was asked about this, he rubbished the allegations and said there is no mention of wealth redistribution or an inheritance tax in the document.
“Where is the word economic redistribution in the manifesto? I am on the manifesto committee, there is no such phrase in the manifesto. Every charge the BJP has applied is completely concocted by the BJP’s propaganda machinery. They have talked about people snatching gold and ‘mangalsutras’. There is no reference to any of this. They have talked about the inheritance tax. There is no reference to any of this. None of these issues are even discussed, by the way, in the manifesto committee,” Tharoor said.
The MP conceded that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had spoken about an X-Ray but said that didn’t mean going to people’s houses and checking their cupboards. The X-Ray, or socio-economic caste Census, is to reveal what’s going on inside our country. This, he said, is important because every state government and central government gives or withholds benefits depending on caste.
The socio-economic caste census, he said, will help correlate what people are earning with their caste affiliation. If a correlation emerges between Dalits and poverty, for example, he said, the government can have targeted policies.
“My argument with all of this is that this is a process that will have to be embarked upon. It is not, at this stage anything more than a diagnosis, an X-Ray is used for diagnosis. The prescription has not been made until you’ve done the diagnosis. Why is the BJP inventing an imaginary prescription of wealth redistribution and ascribing it to the Congress… If you object to the diagnosis, tell us why,” he said.
With inputs from NDTV
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