Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Rajya Sabha after his government presented the Rail budget 2015.
Finance Minister speaking in Rajya Sabha, defends the government on the Land Acquisition Bill amendments, the Railway Budget 2015, BJP's electoral performance in recent state elections and the coal block auctions..
Here are the highlights from his speech:
- 9 months ago there was an environment of economic doom, the world was writing us off but today we're back on the global radar.
- Elections in 7 states have been conducted in the last 9 months.
- We lost Delhi, but we got 33 per cent votes. Make that 40 plus and the situation can change.
- Our consistent message has been government is committed to protecting the rights of every citizen irrespective of religion or caste.
- Mr Jaitley quotes Ross Peron's campaign line: Lead me, Follow me or get out of the way.
- Mr Jaitley attacks Congress on J&K - Think how history will judge the role of your party in the state?
- You never learnt because without popular support you wanted to be in power. Four elections you won like this... never was the popular vote with you but you were politically flexible for power.
- We (to Congress) stay in power even after losing, we want to be a part of the government even after being defeated. This is the history of the Congress party, at least in Jammu and Kashmir.
- The Finance Commission recommendations on revenue deficit - I'd like to have this as a debate in the Parliament. Please consider this, why should West Bengal and Kerala be revenue deficit, when even Bihar is not?
- Someone said, "If the economy keeps turning left, there's nothing left in the economy."
- The oil companies have a historic backlog.
- The international oil prices declined steeply.
- The inventory losses of the oil companies is in the lieu of Rs 30,000 crore. Government has stakes in these companies, so does private holders. Should we let these companies be destroyed.
- No I come on the last issue - Land Acquisition.
- There are voices saying that the bill is anti-farmer and corporate friendly.
- When the act was made, there a section 105 was put, the section 4 of which talked about atomic energy, highways among other things, which required land.
- In that schedule, 13 purposes were exempted. In that government doesn't require consent, social impact assessment... nor does it require consideration for right to food.
- In amendments, we have added 5 items to an exisiting list of 13
- To Congress - Don't create an environment in this country in which the two words - Infrastructure and Industry - become bad words. And that is what you're doing.
- The share of GDP of Agriculture is 15% and 60% of the population shares that 15%. So you have to bring people out of agriculture and create jobs in manufacturing.