The Congress has objected to the Narendra Modi government spending an astronomical amount on the G20 summit when it cannot provide cheap cooking gas to the poor or money for the reconstruction of Himachal Pradesh, which has been devastated by floods.

“The allocated budget for the G20 summit was Rs 990 crore. The BJP government spent Rs 4,100 crore. After the Covid-19 pandemic, governments the world over have curtailed their spending on public events,” Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal said.

While the final cost of hosting the G20 summit is not yet known, an estimate of Rs 4,100 crore was revealed by Union minister Meenakshi Lekhi.

Venugopal pointed out that other countries had spent much less when they hosted the summit. “For context, Indonesia spent less than 10 per cent of India’s expenditure — a measly Rs 364 crore for the Bali Summit. This government that cannot ensure cheap LPG or petrol/ diesel, refuses to compensate farmers who faced crop destruction, does not release adequate funds for restoration of flood-devastated Himachal Pradesh, has overshot the budget for this image-building exercise by 10 times,” he said.

Venugopal added: “No number of beautification drives can hide the economic mess this Government has spread across the country. We don’t need to look any further than the flooded Bharat Mandapam to know how public money has gone down the drain.”

Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh reposted a message from a party colleague that said: “Modi raises questions about welfare schemes, arguing where from the resources will come. The issue is not of money but of priorities. Rs 4100 crore was spent on G20. Only Bharat Mandapam cost Rs 2700 crore. Japan spent merely Rs 2600 crore on hosting G20. Germany spent Rs 642 crore, Argentina Rs 931 crore and Russia Rs 170 crore. Modi’s tendency to transform every occasion into an election event is imposing a huge financial burden on the country.”

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had allocated Rs 990 crore in the budget for G20. The final cost could be higher than Rs 4,100 crore when all the departments and agencies report their expenses. The Delhi government and the Centre are fighting over the expenses, with the AAP government in Delhi saying it had demanded Rs 927 crore but got nothing. It said the Delhi government spent the money out of its own pocket.

In a social media post, Lekhi said: “If the AAP had really asked for Rs 927 crore from the Central Government, then one is left wondering what would have been their contribution in G20 or towards nation-building? These are all lies. The AAP, with their history of scams, never had the intent for the development of the national capital.”