NDA govt nothing but minimum governance, maximum publicity: TMC

New Delhi: Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Sagarika Ghose on Tuesday alleged that India is facing an acute governance deficit under the BJP-led NDA government, which she claimed was disconnected from reality and believed in the policy of ‘minimum government maximum publicity’. She asked why the government was reluctant to share the number of deaths in the stampede at Maha Kumbh, while stating that the government does not know how to tackle the catastrophe of unemployment, the crisis of price rise and the challenge of security in Manipur.

Ghose accused the government of muzzling “voices of those who speak truth” and stated that in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index India has slipped to 159 out of 180.

Alleging that it is not guided by a national motto or the dictum of ‘Satyameva Jayate’, Ghose said, “This government lives in imagined reality. All it wants is media publicity and to set up a media narrative. This is precisely why India today faces an acute governance deficit.”

“This government came to power with the slogan of minimum government maximum governance, instead today we have a government which is minimum government maximum publicity.” Quoting investigative journalists, she said they have reported far higher numbers of deaths than the government figures and “more and more evidence is emerging (that) it is not just one stampede, there are two stampedes, maybe three stampedes”. She also lashed out at the VIP culture at the Kumbh, and said reports are stating that it was responsible for the stampede, as VIPs drove up to the ghats in their cars and made the public walk, while routes were closed for common pilgrims who have to wait and then became restless. “The government came to power saying it will end this VIP culture but today this is the government for the VIP, of the VIP and by the VIP,” Ghose said. If a similar stampede were to happen at the Gangasagar mela in West Bengal where “one crore come every year and not a single incident” is reported, she said there would have been at least a dozen fact-finding missions.

Taking a dig at the government’s ‘Sabka saath, sabka vikas’ slogan, she asked, “Today India is called the Billionaire Raj. The top 1 per cent controls 40 per cent of the national wealth, the bottom 50 per cent only have 3 per cent. Is that ‘sabka vikas ya kuch khas logon ke liye vikas’.” She asked where is “sabka saath when the prime minister meets celebrities but does not meet farmers, when opposition is not taken into confidence and bulldozes legislations in Parliament and when the prime minister has not held a single press conference?”