Freebies talk Modi plan to divert corporate loan waiver issue: MP

CHENNAI: While the debate on freebies has dominated the national political scene for the past one week, VCK was largely silent on the issue. During the interaction with DT Next, VCK MP D Ravikumar said that the Centre led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has purposefully kick-started the debate to divert media and public attention away from the controversial issue of loan waiver to large corporates.

Why is this sudden fuss about freebies? Why did Modi take this issue out of nowhere?

This is not a sudden development, but a planned debate. When the issue of waiver of Rs 12 lakh crore to large corporates started surfacing, Modi planted a debate on freebies, which was taken up by the Judiciary. What was the urgent need for former Chief Justice NV Ramana to take this case before one week of his retirement when several prominent cases such as case related to Article 370, CAA, EWS and so on are pending for more than one year. In this case, the Judiciary’s intention is to help the Centre and Modi.

There is always a complaint against BJP that the party is favouring only large corporates. How true it is?

There is no second thought that BJP is favouring only 60 to 70 large corporates, which is evident from the growth of Adani, who was an unknown person during Congress regime. But he has now become the world’s fourth richest person. Right from 2014 after BJP took over the allotment for key departments such as education, health and defence has reduced and major allocation is only for corporates. Another example to say that BJP favours only corporates is the removal of wealth tax for corporates.

Where does VCK stand in the debate between freebies and development schemes?

There is nothing called freebies. Government gets money from people through taxes and gives it back to people. They should be called welfare schemes. They address the social inequalities. To relieve the financial stress of people who are economically downtrodden, the state government functioning as an agency is implementing the schemes for larger benefit of people.

What about the criticism of opposition parties that freebies like mixer grinders and TVs have made people lazy and instead they want quality education and healthcare?

For people who have mixer grinders and TVs in their houses may look it upon like freebies, but for people who do not have them, they are development schemes. Not everyone in the country could afford to buy them for their homes. The country is not the same for everyone as an industrialist can easily get a loan of Rs 10,000 crore, but ordinary people cannot even get Rs 10,000 as loan. To address this discrimination such welfare measures are implemented by the government.