Hyderabad: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State President N Ramchander Rao alleged that during the 1962 Indo-Sino War of 1962, the then prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had sought the help of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) volunteers to work on the borders, and on the Republic Day of the following year, they were also asked to participate in the parade because of their contribution.
Rao cited this example from history to explain what he called the “sacrifice of patriots to the nation by living,” to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to curb gold purchases, reduce the consumption of edible oil, petrol and diesel.
Addressing the media at party state headquarters in Nampally on Tuesday, May 12, Rao said various former prime ministers since independence made similar appeals to the people of the country.
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“Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had asked the people of southern states to stop consuming rice, and those in the north to stop eating rotis. Lal Bahadur Shastri had asked the people to stop eating meals on every Monday. Indira Gandhi had gone to the extent of asking people not to give birth. That had resulted in her son, Sanjay Gandhi, sterilising many, including young men who were not even married. During the emergency period, Indira Gandhi had called for talking less and working more,” he recalled.
“Former PM Dr Manmohan Singh had stated that there was a need to contain subsidies, saying money didn’t grow on trees,” he added, also citing Nehru from 1949, saying, “those who waste food by organising feasts, just do that to show off their crime against the country.”
He also cited Jawaharlal Nehru, referring to an Independence Day speech in which he called upon people to reduce their consumption of food grains, stating that hoarding was driving up prices. He added that Nehru had also noted in his speech that the country was facing food shortages.“In 1951, Nehru said that prices in India were going up because of the Korean War. Indira Gandhi had also appealed to the people not to buy gold because of the foreign exchange conditions not being healthy. In 2013, former finance minister P Chidambaram appealed to the people not to buy gold,” he recalled.
Rao said that whenever austerity measures were suggested by the leaders of the country, they were done in the best interests of the country and its people, in times of economic or war crisis.
Rao claimed that under Narendra Modi’s decade-long rule at the Centre, the foreign exchange reserves grew to USD 600 billion.
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“The Manmohan Singh government, which was afraid of increasing the price of petrol and diesel because of a backlash from the people, issued oil bonds to the companies amounting to Rs 6 lakh crore. In the 10 years of the Modi government, these bonds were cleared,” he said.
Observing that the present oil crisis was being driven by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the various wars happening in the middle-east, Rao said that while countries like US, Canada, South Korea, China, Italy, Germany, Australia, and many other countries have increased the price of petrol by anywhere between 5 to 50 percent; only 4 countries such as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, India and Brazil didn’t increase the fuel prices.
He questioned what the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, All India Congress Committee (AICC) President Mallikarjun Kharge and Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy meant when they were criticising Modi’s austerity measures, while their own leaders had made similar appeals in the past since independence.
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