Congress has 'veered very very left', its current economic agenda divisive: Milind Deora

Mumbai: Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Milind Deora has claimed that the Congress, which once ushered in financial reforms, currently has a divisive economic agenda that seeks to derail India's growth trajectory. In an interview to PTI, Deora said the Congress was a centrist party, but it now has "veered very very left".

The former Congress leader noted the opposition party talks about policies which are communist and socialist in nature that have failed around the world, at a time when it should be actually articulating views on how to fuel innovation and attract investment. The economic reforms of 1991 and Congress' policies of the previous 60 or 70 years facilitated the creation of businessmen and wealth generators.

However, the Congress party is now trying to "name call them, abuse them, criticise them", the former Union minister claimed. It is a symptom of the fact that the Congress is moving away from its own legacy, said the 47-year-old Mumbai-based politician who handled communications and information technology portfolios as a junior minister in the Manmohan Singh government.

Deora quit the grand old party in January this year and joined the Shiv Sena led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. He was subsequently elected to the Rajya Sabha unopposed. He said the Congress had an economic agenda to take India forward. "Today, I find the Congress has an economic agenda which is divisive, that seeks to derail India's economic growth trajectory, which when India is faced with a really interesting and exciting tailwind where much of the world wants to diversify from China and invest in India," he emphasised.

"We should be taking advantage of that," said Deora. Deora, who was the Lok Sabha member from South Mumbai from 2004-2014, said many people in the Congress, including former PM Dr Manmohan Singh - who as finance minister ushered in landmark financial reforms in 1991 - will not subscribe to the party's current economic views.

It is the Congress which implemented economic reforms in 1991 under the leadership of the then-Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, he pointed out. "But the Congress moved away, shied away from those reforms," Deora said.

The Shiv Sena MP hit out at the main opposition outfit for opposing the abrogation of Article 370 (which provided special status to Jammu & Kashmir) and said the nation's founding fathers, who were also members of the Congress, had introduced it as a temporary provision, but the party "veered away" from it.

The Congress fought against caste politics, but today the party is advocating it, Deora said, alluding to the opposition outfit's assurance of conducting a nationwide caste census if it comes to power after the Lok Sabha polls.