Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad today claimed that some sections of the media had joined rival political parties in denouncing the achievements of the UPA government.
"Political parties, joined by an overwhelming section of the media, are denouncing the work which UPA has done... The country is being misled by political parties about what we have done," Azad said at an event organised here by NSUI.
Stray incidents were blown out of proportion and given wide publicity while path-breaking decisions were not even mentioned, he alleged.
Azad lauded the programmes and welfare schemes launched by the UPA government and said it had carried out unprecedented developmental work, which sections of the media had chosen to ignore.
"Today, society has become such that you show some untruth on TV ten times and people believe it. Say a lie a hundred times in a public meeting and people think it is true," he said.
Azad also hit out at opposition BJP and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
BJP has become the party of an individual, Azad charged, while adding that Modi, the Gujarat Chief Minister, stood only for the prosperity of a few as compared to Congress, which represented development for all.
"BJP has become the party of an individual and it is also seeking votes in the name of an individual. When votes are sought in the name of an individual, it is dictatorship," he said.
The country has a choice between rule by the majority, with all its diversity, and rule by an individual, he said.
Azad said that the much-talked-about Gujarat model ranked below other states on various indicators. Many states have better models, he added.
Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Shashi Tharoor, who was also present on the occasion, talked about the work done by the government in the field of education, which he claimed was in many ways better than what the NDA had done while in power.
Tharoor said that while not even 55 per cent of schools had drinking water facility under the NDA government, the figure had gone up to 87 per cent now. He added that 92 per cent of schools now had toilets for girls.
Gross enrolment in colleges had also improved beyond what it was in the NDA years, Tharoor said. The UPA government had created 16 new central universities, nine new IITs and seven new IIMs while NDA had set up only one IIT and two IIMs, he said.
When an NSUI activist asked Tharoor why the government did not consider making economic condition the criterion for reservation, Tharoor said all issues could discussed once the elections were over.
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 "Ghulam Nabi Azad")
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