Terming the Congress’s poll promises constitutionally impossible and financially improbable, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley released the BJP’s election manifesto for Gujarat polls on Friday.
The BJP government’s performance speaks for itself, said Jaitley, quoting the latest Crisil report that ranked Gujarat at the top in GSDP growth in the past five years.
“This was at a time when there was no boom globally or in the national economy. In the past five years, under BJP rule, Gujarat has recorded 10 per cent average growth rate — the highest among the large States. No country in the world is growing at this rate. Even China's pace of growth has reduced to 6.5 per cent,” he said.
The vision document, released in the presence of the BJP’s State unit chief Jitu Vaghani and Gujarat in-charge Bhupendra Yadav, said the objective is to maintain such a pace of growth and keep the State united.
Taking a dig at the Congress’s promises, Jaitley said: “The Congress looks at financially improbable concessions. Against the State’s revenues of ₹90,000 crore, the party has promised additional financial concessions worth ₹1,21,000 crore.
“The party has also promised to waive ₹20,000 crore, that means the revenue will drop to ₹70,000 crore.”
The Minister also slammed the Congress over its reservation promise to the Patidar community. “Social polarisation will only damage the State. If the Congress moves ahead on this path, they will cause massive damage to the State, just as in the 1980s,” he said.