The Congress has taken umbrage to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent comments on the state of the economy in 2014, immediately after the UPA demitted office, terming it an attempt to stoke conflict and ensure disruptions during the upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament.

What has irked the Congress is the PM’s statement that his government did not come up with a white paper on economy because it placed the country’s interests over political scores, as the BJP could have gained by revealing the real state of the economy after two terms of the UPA government.

Modi running away

“The government is not interested in the Monsoon Session of Parliament. They started issues [of conflict] ahead of the session. In the last session, the Prime Minister wanted to run away from our questions. The Treasury benches disrupted the last session. They want to disrupt this session to escape from the questions from Opposition,” Congress’ deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Anand Sharma, told reporters on Tuesday.

Sharma, countering Modi’s argument that the Opposition’s only purpose is to unseat him, said there is nothing wrong in the coming together of various parties to oust BJP from power and said such a move was in national interest.

“Modi became Prime Minister, but his state of mind has not changed,” Sharma said. “This government has to change. They cheated the people. Their mindset is of confrontation. They have damaged the image and reputation of India.”

The Prime Minister said in a two-part interview to a magazine that the government preferred to think of ‘India first’ instead of putting ‘politics first’. “We did not want to push the issues under the carpet, but we were more interested in addressing the issue. We focused on reforming, strengthening and transforming the Indian economy,” Modi said in the interview.

Sharma said the government could not escape accountability and should be prepared to answer issues raised by the Opposition and allow Parliament to function.

He alleged that the government did not believe in consensus on any issue and instead believed in confrontation.

“We appeal to the government to give up this mindset of confrontation and behave like a responsible government and allow the Parliament to function in larger national interest,” he said.

Referring to a recent meeting of Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Vijay Goel with former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Sharma said there had to be a structured dialogue with top leaders of opposition parties, including the Leader of Opposition. He said there had been no proper dialogue between the Opposition and the government.

In the interview to the magazine, the PM had said that “hatred for Modi” was the sole gluing force for the Opposition. “It is not as if they have not tried Grand Alliances in 2014 and in the ensuing State elections. The results are for everyone to see.”

Modi also claimed in the interview that there was no ‘Grand Alliance’ of Opposition parties, but only a grand race to be Prime Minister. “Rahul Gandhi says he is ready to be prime minister, but TMC does not agree. Mamata ji wants to be PM but the Left has a problem. SP thinks their leader, more than anyone else, deserves to be PM. The whole focus is power politics, not people’s progress,” he said.

“How long will the dislike and mistrust these parties and leaders have for each other keep them together? They are in direct bitter contests against each other in various states like West Bengal and Kerala. The last time these parties formed a government in Uttar Pradesh (in 1993), it could not even last two years. Such instability adversely impacts the growth trajectory of our nation,” he added.

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