Taking aim at the NDA government’s much publicised launch of three major social security schemes on Saturday, the Congress has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of simply renaming and repackaging the schemes launched by the UPA government.
“The high-voltage media exercise undertaken yesterday was yet again a blatant attempt at renaming, repackaging and relaunching, coupled with the now characteristic event management style of governance. It has again established the ‘NaMo’ style of governance i.e. nothing-original, message-only,” said Randeep Singh Surjewala, head of the Congress party's communication department, on Sunday.
He said contrary to claims, the entire exercise on Saturday was aimed at “credit taking” by appearing pro-people in the midst of the “anti-people suit-boot sarkar” image that this government has made for itself by its “misdeeds and crony friendly policies”.
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“The people of this country, however, can see through this subterfuge. They know that the schemes are nothing but a repackaged the Aam Aadmi Beema Yojana (AABY), the Rajiv Gandhi Shilpi Swasthya Beema Yojana (RGSSBY) and the Rashtriya Swasthya Beema Yojana (RSBY) — schemes that the previous government launched with an aim to widen the social security net,” Mr. Surjewala said.
He claimed the UPA schemes had benefited about five crore (AABY), 42 lakh (RGSSBY) and 12 crore (RSBY) people and an amount of Rs. 2,155 crore, Rs 327.71 crore and Rs 4,300.07 crore respectively has been disbursed already.
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“The cumulative number of individuals covered under these schemes exceeds 17 crore [six crore families] and the amount benefiting them sums up to over Rs.7,800 crore. We sincerely hope that the Modi government is not wanting to shut down these major schemes providing a security umbrella to 17 crore people of the country,” he said.