‘Surgical strike on poverty’: Rahul Gandhi counters BJP on minimum income promise

Calling his minimum income guarantee proposal a 'surgical strike on poverty', Congress President Rahul Gandhi trained his guns on the Bharatiya Janata Party for criticising the idea. Gandhi said that it was shameful that 21st century India had 25 crore people living in poverty. The BJP had said that the NDA government was already providing Rs 5.3 lakh crore per year to the poor via direct benefit transfers, while the Congress was promising only Rs 3.6 lakh crore per annum.