NYAY scheme is not free gift to poor, it's justice, says Rahul Gandhi

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said his party's proposed minimum income guarantee scheme--'NYAY' was not gift to the poor, but justice.

On Monday, Rahul had announced that Rs 72,000 per year will be given as minimum income to poor families, benefiting around 25 crore people, if his party is voted to power in Lok Sabha polls. The name of the proposed scheme is 'Nyuntam Aay Yojana' or Nyay. The word 'Nyay' stands for justice in Hindi.

Hitting back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for criticising the proposed scheme, the Congress chief said that the former mocked MGNREGA as he failed to understand Congress government’s employment generation scheme.

“In last five years, PM Modi has opposed and weakened all the schemes that helped the poor. He referred to MNREGA as "digging pits". He doesn't understand that these schemes lifted 14 crore people out of poverty,” Rahul said while addressing a rally in Bundi.

He further targeted the Modi government over GST saying that the small and mid-sized businessmen were not doing any business as they were busy filling the GST forms.

Earlier in the day, addressing a rally in Suratgarh town of Ganganagar district, the Congress chief termed his party’s promise of minimum guaranteed income to the poorest 20 per cent household a "surgical strike on poverty" and said nobody should be poor in 21st century India.

A day after declaring his party would roll out the scheme if voted to power, Gandhi alleged that Prime Minster Narendra Modi gave money to the rich and top industrialists of the country, but the Congress would serve the poor.

He said the promised minimum income scheme was a "big bang".

"Dhamaka hai ye...Bomb fatega (It's a big bang...A bomb will set off). This is a Congress's surgical strike on poverty. They (the BJP) worked to eliminate the poor we will eliminate poverty," Gandhi said.

On helping the poor, he said, "We thought how it should be done. After discussion and brainstorming, we thought that there should be a minimum income line of Rs. 12,000 per month. Soon after formation of the Congress government in 2019, the minimum income line in India will be Rs 12,000 per month."