New Delhi: The BJP slammed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday for his remarks that the National Population Register (NPR) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) were a "tax" on the poor, saying he was the "liar of the year" for his numerous lies that had "embarrassed" people and even his party.
Senior BJP leader and Union minister Prakash Javadekar accused the Congress of trying to fan instability by misleading people over issues related to citizenship, which have triggered protests in different parts of the country, but asserted people were with the government on the new citizenship law and NPR.
Noting that these exercises did not involve any monetary transaction and the NPR data was used to identify targeted beneficiaries of welfare schemes, Javadekar hit back at the Congress, saying collecting tax was the "culture" of the opposition party, be it the "Jayanthi" tax, the "coal tax" or the "2G tax", a reference to the monikers used by the saffron party to describe several alleged scams under the UPA government.
The NPR exercise was undertaken in 2010 as well, he said.
"When Rahul Gandhi was the Congress president, he would say anything and lie all the time. Now he is no longer the president, but continues to lie. If there was a category of the liar of the year, he would be in it. His comments used to embarrass his family. His lies now embarrass his party and the entire country," said Javadekar.
The Congress hit back at the BJP, saying the ruling party resorts to abuse and personal attacks when it has no answers to Gandhi's "tough questions" on issues such as the state of the economy and women's security.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera alleged there was "star wars" in the top leadership of the BJP, with one saying something in Parliament and the other saying something else at Ramlila Maidan, an apparent reference to Home Minister Amit Shah's remarks and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comments at a rally here.
"Rahul Gandhi from every platform asks tough questions. The government of the day is either too arrogant to respond to these questions which the people want answers to or the government has no answers to cover their failures. They hide behind abuse, very low, very petty level of narrative, to make it a personal attack," said Khera.
Highlighting the benefits of the NPR data and also that of the Aadhaar, Javadekar said the Modi government had directly transferred Rs 9 lakh crore to tens of crores of beneficiaries of welfare schemes and saved Rs 2 lakh crore of leakage.
Former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi used to say only Rs 15 reached the beneficiaries of his government's schemes of the Rs 100 meant for them, the BJP leader said, adding that all the money was reaching the poor now under the Modi government.
Javadekar said the BJP had two demands from the Congress -- first it should stop lying and that people should not be misled by its comments.
Gandhi should also visit the hospital in Rajasthan's Kota, where the Congress is in power, as 77 children died there in a month, he said, adding that the Congress should stop making loan waiver promises as it had never honoured those.
Asked about the announcements by states ruled by opposition parties such as West Bengal and Kerala that they would not carry out the NPR exercise, the Union minister said such a decision was an "insult" to and a "betrayal" of the poor.
(With inputs from PTI)
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