The Hindu : Decision on sops unethical: Congress

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Thursday, Jan 22, 2004

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Decision on sops unethical: Congress

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI. JAN. 21. The Congress today criticised the latest in the series of "sops'' by the Vajpayee Government stating that the move to give concessions to the people after having declared its intention to go in for early Lok Sabha polls was "unethical.''

Reacting to the decision of the Union Cabinet to offer some concessions to the farm sector and to hawkers, the party said they were "yet another set of gifts from Santa Claus'' and said that in this case the person who had been distributing them had "gone to sleep for a long time like Rip Van Winkle.''

"When for all these past five years, there were serious problems in agriculture when suicides in large numbers were reported, we did not find any (steps),'' the party spokesperson, Abhishek Singhvi, said.

He said that when the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, had through several letters drawn the attention of the Government to the problems being faced by the farmers, they received "platitudes but no benefits.''

He alleged that the latest announcement was nothing but an attempt at "collective bribery'' before elections.

The party sought to know whether it was fair for a Government, which had decided to advance the Lok Sabha elections, to use public funds to create an "uneven field.'' Referring to the "India Shining'' campaign, the party accused the Government of spending Rs. 100 crore of public funds and said the series of sops announced during the past few days amounted to nearly Rs. 25,000 crore.

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