The Congress on Friday accused the Narendra Modi government of robbing ordinary citizens to fill the coffers instead of scrapping his vanity projects — the Central Vista and bullet trains — to tide the country over the acute financial crisis it was grappling with.

Rahul Gandhi tweeted: “The government’s decision to freeze dearness allowance (DA) for central government employees, pensioners and defence personnel who are serving the people despite the coronavirus crisis instead of suspending the bullet train and the Central Vista beautification projects worth lakhs of crores is insensitive and inhumane.”

The Congress also held a media conference to stress the point. “Instead of providing a healing touch to the people, the government is robbing them,” the party’s communications chief, Randeep Surjewala, said.

“Rupees 3.80 lakh crore can be easily saved by cutting wasteful government expenditure and scrapping the vanity projects — the Central Vista and bullet trains. Modiji ironically chose to target the common man, who is doomed to pay for his misguided and misconceived policies.”

Surjewala added: “On March 23, 2020, the Government of India passed a budget of Rs 30.42 lakh crore. It is presumed that the budget is a correct accounting of expected revenue and expenditure. In case the expected revenue was to fall, the first thing that you will proceed to do is to cut down wasteful expenditure rather than hit the people of India.

“But yesterday, the finance ministry issued a shocking order, declaring a freeze on DA from a back date, from January 1, 2020, of 113 lakh central government employees and pensioners. The tragic part is that by deducting this amount from January 1, 2020, up to June 30 , 2021, the government proceeds to deduct almost Rs 38,000 crore from the income of these employees and pensioners.”

Knowing that the Prime Minister spares no opportunity to politically exploit the valour of the armed forces, Surjewala added: “Even more tragic and objectionable is the fact that the government has not even spared our armed forces. Modi has deducted Rs 11,000 crore of the 15 lakh serving armed forces personnel and nearly 26 lakh military pensioners. What is their fault? They serve the nation in times of all types of crises.”

The Congress, which has in the recent past asked the government to share at least a portion of the windfall profit — Rs 20 lakh crore — it had earned by taxing petroleum products at a time when international crude rates had crashed, also pointed to the cut in interest rates on bank deposits.

Surjewala said: “In March only, the government had reduced the interest by 1-1.5 per cent on all national savings schemes. The State Bank of India had reduced its interest rate on savings bank accounts. By these two steps alone, the government had deducted Rs 19,000 crore annually from 30 crore depositors. The customers of SBI also lost Rs 9,429 crore.”

Surjewala lamented that the government was stealing Rs 38,000 crore from the common people but carrying on with its vanity project worth Rs 20,000 crore (the Central Vista), a meeting for which was held even on Thursday by the Prime Minister.

“Is it necessary to construct a new office and residence of the Prime Minister and the ministers when millions of people are struggling for a piece of bread? The bullet train project will cost Rs 110,000 crore. By cutting down on government expenditure by 30 per cent, an additional Rs 2.5 lakh crore can be saved. So, this is a sum of Rs 3.8 lakh crore readily available for the emergency but the government is punishing salaried employees and soldiers,” he said.

The Congress leader alleged that the Prime Minister was sending a message to the private sector to cut salaries and sack employees by cutting salaries of government staff.

Asked whether the Congress wanted the Central Vista and the bullet train projects to be scrapped altogether, Surjewala said: “We should not carry out these projects till the poor get a safety net, MSMEs are protected and the employment crisis is not resolved. All non-essential work should be suspended.”