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    2 years of Narendra Modi government: Shiv Sena slams ally for tall promises

    Synopsis

    Saamna's verbal assault on the Modi government is crucial in that the Sena is the senior-most partner in the BJP-led NDA.

    TNN
    (This story originally appeared in on May 26, 2016)
    MUMBAI: Saamna has criticized the NDA government, which completed two years in office on Thursday with much fanfare, for making tall promises to the people but failing miserably to deliver.

    In a scathing editorial, the Shiv Sena mouthpiece said, "Barring six to seven schemes such as the Jan Dhan Yojana, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana and the Swachcha Bharat Yojana, people aren't even faintly aware of the 40 welfare schemes announced by the NDA regime during the last two years."

    Saamna's verbal assault on the Modi government is crucial in that the Sena is the senior-most partner in the BJP-led NDA. The Sena shares power with the BJP in Maharashtra too. But the two parties have been at loggerheads ever since they inked the partnership in November 2014.

    Pointing out that a country doesn't prosper on ambitious schemes alone, Saamna said the previous UPA government had announced a slew of projects which were later mired in corruption and which broke the back of the Indian economy.
    Continuing its veiled attack on the NDA rule, the Sena mouthpiece drew a parallel between the Congress's Garibi Hatao scheme of the 1970s and Modi's Achche Din campaign. "The Congress raised the Garibi Hatao slogan and made the rich class richer and the poor, poorer. This only helped generate black money which soon found its way to foreign banks."

    "Modi said he would bring back the black money stashed away in foreign banks. He also said that should this happen, Rs 10-11 lakh would be deposited in the bank account of each Indian. However, two years on, the PM is still to redeem his pledge to the people."

    While admitting grudgingly that no major scandal has rocked the country in the last two years, Saamna, in the same breath, pointed out that the NDA government has failed to curb price rise or farmers' suicides following failed crops and mounting debts.

    Our jawans are dying every day in brazen attacks from naxals on the one hand and in Pak-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir on the other. Yet, the NDA government is cosying up to Islamabad, said the daily.

    Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his numerous foreign trips, Saamna said, "The Modi regime is completing two years today. One will have to find out if the Prime Minister is on a visit abroad. The Prime Minister was in Iran and from there he may probably have gone to Assam to unveil his party's new regime there...Surrounded as we are with neighbours such as China and Pakistan, we need to have friends across the world. Which is why the PM keeps globe-trotting, added Saamna as an afterthought.

    While stating that it would be proper to draw up the NDA's balancesheet after it completes its five-year tenure in office, Saamna, in a parting kick to the NDA, said the people of Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have anyway pronounced their verdict on the Modi government.



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