Amid the cash for query row TMC MP's blistering speech from Lok Sabha goes viral.
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#Adani #MahuaMoitra #LokSabha #TMC #Cashforquery #MamataBanerjee #PMModi #BJP #NishikantDubey #Hiranandani #LokSabha #Bribery #Allegations #OmBirla #ParliamentSession #TrinamoolCongress #Parliament #AdaniGroup #BJPVsTMC #DarshanHiranandani #WestBengal #HWNews
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00:00 The question is not who lit the fire, the question is who has the matchstick in the hand of the mad.
00:06 I rise to speak on the additional demand for grants 22-23. I begin by quoting the author Jonathan Swift.
00:15 As the wildest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his believers.
00:21 And it often happens that if a lie be believed for only one hour, it has done its work.
00:27 Falsehood flies and truth comes limping after it.
00:31 This government has us believe every February that this country's economy is going great guns.
00:37 We are the fastest growing, most efficient global player.
00:41 Everyone is getting employment, we are getting gas cylinders, we are getting electricity, we are getting pakka houses.
00:47 This falsehood flies for about 8-10 months and then the truth comes limping after it.
00:53 And now we are in December and the government says it needs another 3.26 lakh crores of additional funds over and above the budget estimate.
01:03 The government and the ruling party coined the term Pappu.
01:07 You use it to denigrate, to signify extreme incompetence.
01:12 Let me use the next few minutes to point out what the data, the statistics tell us as to who the actual Pappu really is.
01:20 NSO numbers were out yesterday.
01:24 Industrial output has shrunk by 4% in October to a 26-month low.
01:29 The manufacturing sector contracted 5.6%.
01:33 Manufacturing is still the biggest generator of jobs.
01:36 17 of the industry sectors that make up the index of industrial production have recorded negative growth rates.
01:43 Forex reserves have fallen by $72 billion in under a year.
01:48 The Honourable Finance Minister yesterday during question hour mentioned how apparently 50% of FII inflows into emerging markets are coming into India.
01:58 Wonderful!
01:59 But her colleague, the Minister of State for External Affairs, just last Friday in response to a question in this very house,
02:06 stated that almost 2 lakh people, 1,83,741 people, renounced their Indian citizenship in the first 10 months of 2022.
02:18 This exodus in 2022 takes the total number of Indians renouncing Indian citizenship under this government in the past 9 years since 2014 to over 12.5 lakh people.
02:31 This year has already seen more people giving up Indian citizenship than any single given year.
02:37 High net worth individuals are willing to pay up to a million dollars to get citizenship of Portugal, of Senkits, of Greece.
02:45 Is this the sign of a healthy economic environment, of a healthy tax environment?
02:50 Who's the pappu now?
02:52 There is an atmosphere of terror in this country with the sword of the Enforcement Directorate hanging over businessmen and high net worth individuals.
03:00 The ruling party buys lawmakers for hundreds of crores and yet members of the opposition represent 95% of lawmakers under investigation by the Enforcement Directorate.
03:11 But forget politicians, they're tough, they can fend for themselves.
03:15 Businessmen and high net worth individuals are soft targets.
03:18 In the monsoon session, in response to a query from my honourable colleague from the JDU, Mr. Rajiv Ranjan Singh,
03:24 the Finance Ministry informed this house that in the past 17 years, the ED has opened 5,422 investigations under the PMLA,
03:34 but has convicted only 23 people.
03:38 That is a conviction rate of a pathetic 0.5%.
03:43 Since 2011, the ED has launched 1,600 investigations, 1,800 raids and convicted only 10 people.
03:51 In the supplementary demand for grants, I see that the government is asking for an additional 2,900 crores
03:58 to buy land and ready-built accommodation, office accommodation for the Enforcement Directorate.
04:03 The taxpayers, you and I, are paying for the ED's operations, for their prosecutions, for their investigations, for their foreign junkets.
04:10 So do Parliament and public representatives have no right to ask this na khaunga na khaane dunga Sarkar,
04:17 who is presiding over the ED, why there is such a pathetic conviction rate of 0.5%?
04:23 Is the ED's job only to harass people, or is it to actually track down and catch the perpetrators of financial crimes?
04:30 What is this level of incompetence? Who is the pappu now?
04:35 Members of the ruling party continue to spread falsehoods about the benefits of demonetization ad nauseam,
04:41 with no regard to the actual data.
04:44 You have not achieved the goals of a cashless digital economy.
04:47 You have not achieved the goals of phasing out fake currency, even after six years of your dhamaka announcement.
04:53 Currency in circulation has doubled from 18 lakh crores in November 2016 to 32 lakh crores in November 2022.
05:02 Cash management company CMS's cash index for ATM hit an all-time high this Diwali.
05:08 Cash is still king. Demonetization did not achieve any of the three targets.
05:13 Who is the pappu now?
05:15 I have been reviewing the demand for additional grants, and there are various items in it that are shocking.
05:20 From a total subsidy request of 1 lakh 9 thousand crores in March,
05:24 the Department of Fertilisers has asked for an equal amount in the supplementary request.
05:30 Just urea alone is accounting for 86 thousand crores.
05:34 Phosphorus and potassium are controlled because they are nutrient-based subsidies.
05:38 What is this government doing to stem the overuse of urea, which is killing the soil, killing productivity and killing our health?
05:44 What the soil needs is balanced use of fertilizers.
05:47 Bengal has been promoting a balanced fertilizer blend of major fertilizers.
05:52 And now we are suffering because the centre is starving us of the most popular mix of NPK,
05:57 which is the basal application for potato.
06:00 During November 22, Bengal asked for a certain amount,
06:03 and only 33% of our demand for balanced fertilizers was met by the centre.
06:09 Most of the urea-based subsidies are going to Gale,
06:12 because Gale supplies the maximum gas to the fertilizer sector.
06:16 When are we going to see the much-promised reform and competition in this natural gas sector?
06:20 When are we going to see the promised transmission system operator, the unbundling of Gale?
06:26 Is the government hiding and protecting Gale under the garb of providing urea subsidies to people?
06:31 Nearly 2,000 crores supplementary demand is for large industry,
06:35 whereas only 233 crores is for the MSME sector.
06:40 But the MSME sector accounts for 90% of jobs in the industrial sector.
06:45 These are very distorted priorities.
06:47 About 45,000 crores demand is for Manrega and other rural employment schemes.
06:52 This is far too little, far too late.
06:55 The rural sector accounts for nearly two-thirds of employment in this country.
06:59 Field reports suggest that only a very small fraction of rural households are getting Manrega jobs.
07:04 That too, not more than 30 to 40 days instead of the assured 100 days.
07:08 That too, there's a three to four week lag in wage payment,
07:11 simply because there is inadequate allocation of funds.
07:15 There is also no supplementary demand for subsidized food delivery under PDS.
07:19 There's an overall anti-poor bias in the supplementary demand for grants.
07:25 BSNL is being provided, this is very interesting.
07:28 BSNL is being provided a viability gap funding of 18,000 crores for rural wireline operations.
07:35 Prima facie, I don't have a problem with this,
07:37 but if the government of India wants to keep giving BSNL viability gap funding,
07:41 it is also giving it free spectrum worth 30,000 crores.
07:45 Then why not make BSNL free roaming rural for everybody?
07:49 If I'm not a BSNL user, I'm an Airtel user.
07:52 I am paying for BSNL's free spectrum.
07:54 It is not only BSNL subscribers who are paying for it.
07:57 So if Airtel has poor network in a rural area,
08:00 why can my phone not latch on to BSNL?
08:03 Taxpayers are paying for this, make it free for all in rural areas.
08:06 The supplementary demand for grants will amount to an additional expenditure of about 4.36 lakh crores.
08:12 This is going to raise the fiscal deficit above the target that you mentioned in the budget.
08:16 So what is the government's additional revenue mobilization measures,
08:20 especially non-tax revenue, that is going to make this up,
08:23 make up the additional expenditure so we stay within the fiscal demand targets,
08:27 fiscal deficit target?
08:29 The Honourable Finance Minister yesterday stood in this house
08:32 and she likened us, the opposition, to "videsh ka dushman"
08:36 and she said we have "jalan ka bhavna" at India's growth.
08:41 I stand here today to tell the Honourable Minister, wherever she may be,
08:45 to tell this government, to tell this ruling party,
08:48 that all of us here have given up our lives, our youth,
08:52 our "jeevon", our "jobon", as it were,
08:55 to dedicate ourselves to the service of this great land, to the service of its people.
09:00 We represent the farthest corners of this country,
09:03 from Karimpur to Kutch, from Katgodam to Kasargod.
09:06 It is our inalienable right to ask the questions of this government.
09:12 It is our right to question your incompetence.
09:15 And it is this government's "rajdharma" that should make the Treasury benches sit down,
09:20 listen to our voices, and not react like the proverbial "khisiyani billi".
09:25 It requires enormous courage and tenacity to simply stand up here and speak the truth,
09:30 and we are doing it.
09:32 In contrast, the ruling party is moving from one incendiary issue to another,
09:37 from the division of Bengal into North and South, to the Citizenship Amendment Bill,
09:41 to releasing convicted lifetime murderers and rapists just before an election,
09:46 to openly trying to challenge the judiciary into submission.
09:49 You somehow keep hoping that you will scare India into submission,
09:53 and you will keep winning power term after term, but it's not working.
09:58 You just went to election in three states.
10:00 With all your might, with all your resources, you won and only won.
10:04 The president of the ruling party could not hold on to his own home state.
10:08 Who's the pappu now?
10:10 A certain honourable MP from the Treasury benches,
10:13 who's given to trespassing in high security zones,
10:16 who goads us all with equal measure of falsehood and fake bravado.
10:21 Yesterday took cheap pot shots at my state, the state of Bengal,
10:25 with false claims of diversion of Manrega funds.
10:28 To him I say this, "Sir, don't push your luck."
10:31 I went to Mount Holyoke College, I worship Maa Kali,
10:34 and I've been elected twice from a border constituency.
10:37 In your lingo I say to you, and this is not unparliamentary,
10:40 "Don't take panga."
10:42 A certain Jari Booty Baba says publicly,
10:46 he likes women in saris, shalwars, and also nothing at all.
10:50 In the presence of the wife of a deputy chief minister of the ruling party,
10:54 hand on heart ask yourselves,
10:56 had any opposition leader said anything remotely similar,
11:00 you would have been baying for their blood.
11:02 The ruling party does not denounce it, there is no outrage.
11:05 A convicted murderer and rapist is publicly giving sermons while out on parole,
11:10 and leaders of the ruling party are listening to it.
11:13 You do not have the moral clarity to call out right from wrong.
11:16 Who's the pappu now?
11:18 People tell me to keep quiet, to make peace in the name of soft Hindutva.
11:23 I am Hindu, but I refuse to play soft anything.
11:26 What this country needs is an elected government
11:29 which plays hard morality, hard legality, and hard economics.
11:33 No soft anything.
11:35 I urge this government and the finance minister to take control of the economy,
11:39 and I urge the people of India to take control over who they give the reins of this country to.
11:45 The question is not who lit the fire,
11:48 the question is who gave the matchbox to the madman.
11:51 This is a question that India needs to answer.
11:54 Thank you very much. Jai Hind.
11:56 [music playing]
11:59 (upbeat music)