Coming down heavily on the NDA government for ignoring parliamentary processes, Ghanshyam Tiwari, national spokesperson, Samajwadi Party, has said that there have been more Sundays than working days in parliament during the past seven years.   

“If you look at the track record of the current parliament, never ever in India’s history has the parliament sat for fewer days in any seven years than in these seven years. There have been more Sundays in these seven years than the number of sittings of parliament and yet they say they stand up for the country and its institutions,” he said.

Tiwari was speaking to Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now, in a live webcast on Wednesday as part of the Visionary Talk series held by the public policy and governance analysis platform.

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He added that that the government has played a complete fraud on people and said that it will build a new parliament building when it has hardly had any sittings. He also castigated the media for becoming a tool for propaganda. “Unlike anywhere in the world, media has become a communal machinery to propagate hatred and the BJP is leading from front to do so.”

Tiwari said that with more tools and technology available as compared to any other time earlier if the government really wants to make any progress, the time is now. “If the government wants to improve public health infrastructure and agriculture there is more data available now than it was available any other point in time. There are drones, GIS mapping analytics through which you can build up predictive analysis on various stretches of fields to come out with bands of farmers income.”

The Samajwadi Party leader added that the BJP has the largest political capital and ground force working for them, be it fake news network or propaganda network. He said that Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath recently went on record to say that Tablighi Markaz had pledged to propagate the virus.  “You will not find such Nazi-like behaviour anywhere in the world, especially when it is going through a pandemic. All they must do is with a good heart say that India must enter 21st century with a force of truth and force of harmony rather than the evil of propaganda and hatred. The day BJP decides to do it we will see our GDP growth improve and we will not be called lapdogs of corporates but real leaders. Till that time people like us have to tell facts as they are,” he said.   
       
Tiwari who has worked with global organisations like Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Intel and McKinsey &Company called upon the youth of the country to sharpen their ICT skills and said that the common man must decide that 21st century belongs to India and our youth should be able to work on their acumen and educate themselves better, understand how the ICT works and at the same time work on their acumen to distil good information from bad and enhance their knowledge base.

He also cited the example of his own  start-up and said that it is a community of 5,50,000 students in 600 districts with only 50 people running the show. “No government ever has had an opportunity to educate its people. If the government is inclined it can educate each and every child, woman and adult in a period of two years at only one-tenth of the cost.”

Referring to BJP national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia’s interview during the Visionary Talk series held last week in which he hailed the three farm laws and said that they protect the farmers’ interests, Tiwari said that when he [Bhatia] sat along with the law minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, the minister had claimed that the government had had 92 lakh rounds of consultations with farmers for the bills. “A survey needs to be done to find out even if two farmers have been consulted for bills,” said Tiwari.

He criticised the government for introducing the ordinance during the pandemic and said that to brazen it out in parliament because the opposition does not have the numbers and throwing out those members of parliament [who criticise] is muzzling the voice of people. “This forces the real opposition to come out which is not only political parties but also civil society, farmers and youth. He also said that the government made false promises of providing two crore jobs. “Can the government say that in its seven years it has provided two crore jobs? Net job gain in its entire tenure is negative,” Tiwari said.