Former Vice-President of India M Venkaiah Naidu is one man who doesn’t mince words when he wants to point out mistakes in the governments, even if they are headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party or its allies.
On Tuesday, Venkaiah sharply criticized the free bus travel schemes for women being implemented in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Karnataka, questioning the growing trend of governments taking huge loans to fund such welfare schemes.
He said governments should prioritize spending on education and healthcare instead of expanding freebies.
“When governments themselves encourage the culture of freebies, people cannot be blamed for accepting them. But this trend must stop,” he said.
The former Vice-President remarked that instead of giving out free fish, “governments should teach people how to fish.”
He warned that the excessive expansion of welfare schemes has gone beyond reasonable limits and become a political habit aimed at short-term gains.
He cautioned that such borrowing-driven schemes could endanger the financial stability and development of states.
Venkaiah suggested that governments should release white papers on state debts and also questioned the real benefit of free bus schemes, asking what long-term purpose they serve.
He further proposed a constitutional amendment mandating that elected representatives who defect from their political parties must resign from their posts. He expressed concern that some defectors were even being made ministers.
Venkaiah Naidu also condemned the growing trend of abusive language in legislative assemblies, urging presiding officers to take strict action against those using unparliamentary language.
He called for speedy trials and punishment in criminal cases involving public representatives and reiterated his opposition to dynastic politics, saying that he had not brought his daughter into politics for that very reason.