Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) has called for personal intervention of the President in matters of alleged deteriorating economy and use his constitutional power to focus on the issues.
AICC Observer and former Union Minister Deepa Dasmunshi who was here to address the state level Bharat Bachao Samabesh organised by the Congress party told the media that chronic sickness of the economy has worried all sections of people including youths, farmers, industries and consumers.
In a written communication to the President, the state leadership of the Congress party complained that the Indian economy has been affected both at the micro and macro level. A large number of people— from farmers, the poor and middle class— are left to struggle amid the challenging situations in the country.
The OPCC alleged that the all sections of youth, whether qualified, skilled, or semi-skilled, are struggling to get jobs. This adds to the woes of their families. The state leaders also complained about the sorry state of affairs for the farmers in the state.
Dasmunshi also said several industries are being closed one after another and the industrial houses are living in fear due to bearish market and decreasing consumption.
In their correspondence to the President, they said, “Farmers’ net income continues to dwindle because of low price of their products, de-stabilised domestic market and high production cost. Household consumption is at a 40-year-low as per statistics.”
Dasmunshi also said the farmers are not getting right price for their products and their income continued to go down while the middlemen were making profit.
The Congress party said that the rise of inflation along with price rise puts unbearable pressure on all sections of consumers which is a matter of great concern. Retail inflation is expected to rise in the coming days, the party said.
“Banks— the main source of support in both micro and macro level investment— are reluctant to extend loans. In spite of frequent downward revision of repo rate, banks are reluctant to extend loans. They are still disturbed by the increasing and all-time high bad loans,” it said.
The letter was written by the senior party leaders like Niranjan Patnaik, Bhakta Charan Das and others. The letter also tried to attract the attention of the President towards slow MSME growth, falling GDP and other issues including the disturbance in the social fabric of the country.
“…And there is a palpable climate of fear and sense of helplessness in the country. All these are manifestation of bad policies of the Union government and apathy towards chronic economic sickness. Your honour is requested to use Constitution of power to save India and its people from the further economic erosion and to bring back good economic health,” the letter said.
Munshi, on the other hand, said the Modi government had issued electoral bonds before the elections to four states namely Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Karnataka ignoring the advice of the RBI and Election Commission of India. She said the BJP has collected around Rs 6,000 crore about 95 per cent of the total money collected through electoral bond.
Describing the electoral bond as a huge scam, she demanded the BJP to make public the names of the companies who have purchased the bonds and donated to BJP.
Bad economy: Cong seeks Prez intervention
