Manish Sisodia calls out Centre for 'quid pro quo' approach, slams Finance Minister's revdi claims

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New Delhi: Amid the attacks and counter-attacks regarding the `Revdi politics` on freebies, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Friday (August 12, 2022) slammed the Centre on their `quid pro quo` approach. Sisodia said Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tried to scare people by claiming that spending government money on public welfare will destroy India and urged the Centre to invest in citizens.

"Politics is being done to make fun of welfare schemes by calling them `free ki revdi`. Yesterday, FM Nirmala Sitharaman tried to scare the country and said that the country would be ruined. Madam Finance Minister google and see that all the developed countries of the world believe in free education for their children," said Sisodia.

Delhi Deputy CM, while addressing a press conference at the Delhi Secretariat, claimed there are two models of governance. One is the 'Dostwadi' model and the other is investing in public welfare schemes, Sisodia said. 

"The 'Dostwadi' model of the BJP waives loans of lakhs of crores of rupees of its friends but deprives common man of facilities like health and education. They do 'Dostwadi' politics (for welfare of friends) and we do politics for the common people," the AAP leader said.

Sisodia said the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government is "revenue surplus" despite providing free schemes for the people while the "BJP-run states are in deficit". He also highlighted that 39 countries around the world provide free education and countries like Canada, UK, and Brazil provide free health facilities to their people while drinking water is free in many countries.

"These governments believe in free investment on their citizens. Our country is at the bottom of every index. Madam Finance Minister look at the BJP governments, the physical deficit in UP is Rs 81,000 crore and that of Gujarat is Rs 36,000 crore. Whereas for 7 years, the Delhi government is running in surplus despite investment in education, health etc," he added.

Meanwhile, earlier on Thursday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had hit out at Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal saying he had given a "perverse twist" to the debate on freebies as health and education were never considered giveaways and no Indian government has ever denied them to the people.

Sitharaman said that by classifying education and health as freebies, Kejriwal was trying to instil fear in minds of the poor.There should be a genuine debate on this matter, she said. The Finance Minister was responding to questions raised by the Delhi Chief Minister on freebies.

(With agency inputs)