'Thugbandhan': Anurag Thakur mocks Opposition bid to unite against BJP

Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur on Wednesday scoffed at the efforts of opposition parties to defeat the BJP in the run up to the 2024 Lok Sabha election, and termed the alliance a “thugbandan” of parties sunk neck-deep in corruption. “People are aware that these parties have no common policies or ideology and make false promises to win elections. Such experiments had failed in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls,” he told media here. The minister's remarks come on a day Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav held a "historic" meeting with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi in Delhi, and decided to bring together as many opposition parties as possible to take on the saffron party in the next general election.

Thakur further claimed that the Congress and other parties make false promises to win polls and never fulfil them besides indulging in corruption. On the other hand, he said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has always done what it has said.

He also said that India has emerged as the fifth largest economy of the world.

"Today we are number 1 in steel and milk production, number 2 in mobile production and number 3 in the startup ecosystem," he said. The Union minister also said that the country's COVID-19 management, Operation Ganga to ensure safe return of Indians from Ukraine, and immediate aid rushed to quake-hit Syria and Turkiye, speak volumes about the initiatives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Referring to Rajasthan, Thakur said corruption and failure of law and order are rampant in the desert state, and even the Congress party wants to get rid of its Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. He added that Congress leader and former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot has yet again raised his voice against Gehlot and "we hope that he would not backtrack this time".