NEW DELHI: The 10 years of the Congress-led UPA regime were “a lost decade” and saw a “bhrastachar ki dukan (shop of corruption)”, Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Friday.
He also took a swipe at Congress member Rahul Gandhi’s “mohabbat ki dukan” (shop of love) pitch and called him a “prolific foreign tourist”.
At a press conference at the BJP headquarters to highlight the Modi government’s achievements in the electronics and technology sector, the minister said India is witnessing the “most exciting” period in its history as it is reaching new heights due to the Prime Minister’s decisive and effective policy decisions.
“If we look at the period from 2004 to 2014 from the point of view of progress made in the technology space, the most appropriate description for it would be ‘bhrastachar ki dukan’. It was the period when the 2G scam happened, the Antrix-Devas scam happened… Investors were leaving India and BSNL was completely destroyed,” he added.
“The decade starting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi coming at the helm is the decade of India’s techade,” he added. In the nine years since, India has come a long way under the leadership of PM Modi, he said.
India has become the world’s “largest connected” country in cyber space today from the world’s “largest unconnected country” in 2014, the minister added.
“India is now seeing the world’s fastest 5G roll-out. We are having a high degree of indigenous 5G components,” he said.
There is a “boost” to digital connectivity in the country, he said, adding it is the “vision and mission” of the Modi government to ensure safety and security in cyber space, he added.
Recalling that Congress member P Chidambaram had even mocked the India Stack initiatives, the minister said the success of UPI and direct bank transfers to beneficiaries has give the naysayers a befitting reply.
“Even a remote Nagaland village called Zunheboto got 100% DBTs. There was no leakage or corruption unlike in the UPA era,” he said.