New Delhi, India

India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman took a jibe at Congress MP Sonia Gandhi while responding to the debate on the White Paper in Lok Sabha stating that Gandhi, who is the chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), acted like a 'super' Prime Minister and said that 'Ghotala driven' government mismanaged the economy the government.  

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"The centre point of the 'Ghotala-driven' government and mismanagement of the economy lies in the issue of leadership. Sonia Gandhi ji was the 'super' Prime Minister as the chairperson of the advisory council and an extra-constitutional and unaccountable person," Sitharaman said.

"It was an unaccountable and unanswerable power. Due to this, scams took pace. It was an unconstitutional use of power," she added.

She then referred to the incident when Congress MP Rahul Gandhi tore up the ordinance that was put forward by the Manmohan Singh government in the year 2013 questioning the decency in the matter.

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Also read: 'White Paper is serious document', says Nirmala Sitharaman as she slams opposition in Lok Sabha

"When Manmohan Singhji, the then-Prime Minister, was on a foreign trip, a man who might have been the Congress' general secretary or president at the time tore an ordinance. Was this decency? Wasn't this an insult to the Constitution?"

"He was an arrogant man who did not care for his own prime minister," she added.

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Highlighting the scams under the UPA government's tenure, the Indian finance minister stressed Congress' "glaring mismanagement of defence" sector stating that its highlight was the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland scam.

"Critical shortage of ammunition and defence equipment was the main feature of 2014 when we inherited the economy. Bulletproof jackets were not available for our soldiers. Night vision goggles were not available," Sitharaman said.

She then highlighted that the 'Jayanti Tax' during the reign of UPA, pushed the environment clearances for projects for up to a year stating that the efforts of the Modi government during its 10-year tenure put the economy back on rails.

The average time to clear projects increased to 316 days from 86 days between 2011 and 2014.

"We corrected all misgovernance, and focussed on reforms," Sitharaman said, adding the average environment clearance time for projects has come down to 70 days.

What happened at the 2013 presser?

The UPA government, which was led by Congress had put forward the Ordinance in order to get around a Supreme Court judgement barring the elected representatives from becoming the members of legislative bodies upon being convicted in criminal cases.

However, they were propelled to push back the Ordinance after Rahul Gandhi publicly opposed it by shredding the piece of paper, claiming that it deserved to be dumped in the bin.

At the time of a hearing in the Lily Thomas vs Union of India case, the Supreme Court ruled that "any MP, MLA or MLC who is convicted of a crime and given a minimum of 2 years' jail loses membership of the House with immediate effect".

(With inputs from agencies)