Poverty Falls to 2.6%: BJP Slams Congress Over Mock Parliament

New Delhi: BJP national spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Dr. Sudhanshu Trivedi on Saturday held a press interaction in New Delhi, where he credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership for a sharp decline in poverty, citing the World Bank's 2025 report.

Trivedi said the report confirms that extreme poverty in India dropped from 27.6 per cent to 2.6 per cent between 2011 and 2023. He added that 84 per cent of the population now earns more than 400 rupees a day. He stated that the BJP and the NDA government were determined to end poverty and improve the quality of life of citizens, while the Congress and Rahul Gandhi were trying to sow disorder across the country.

According to Trivedi, the Congress party, having failed in its attempt to create turmoil in India, had organised a mock parliament to comfort its 'troubled prince'. He described the exercise as a fiction, and said that at the same time, a strong reality had been placed before the country by the World Bank.

The World Bank's 2025 report observed that India had achieved the fastest reduction in poverty between 2011 and 2023. Only 2.6 per cent of Indians now fall under extreme poverty, whereas a decade ago the figure stood above 27 per cent. The bank also noted that 13 to 14 years ago, 57 per cent of India's people earned less than 2 dollars a day. Today, the share of people earning less than 400 rupees a day has declined to only 16 per cent, which means 84 per cent of Indians earn more than that daily.

Trivedi said the reality is that under PM Modi, the BJP and NDA government are not only committed to raising the living standards of every citizen but are also making progress in this direction. He said the Centre had achieved significant success in reducing poverty, a fact the World Bank report had also acknowledged.

He also highlighted that in August 2025, the World Bank had released the Gini Index on economic equality, where India scored 22.5. This placed India fourth among the countries with the highest economic equality in the world. He added that at that time, no G7 or G20 nation had lower economic inequality than India.

Trivedi recalled that Rahul Gandhi had said in August 2013 that poverty was merely a mindset, while Dr. Manmohan Singh had said that money does not grow on trees.

Trivedi said the vision of the leader with that mindset, Rahul Gandhi, and that of PM Narendra Modi were as different as earth and sky. He alleged that Rahul Gandhi had continued to see poverty only as a mindset and, because of this approach, had kept a large section of the population in extreme poverty. He noted that the World Bank now acknowledges that extreme poverty under PM Modi has fallen to just 2.6 per cent, from 27.6 per cent earlier.

He concluded that the World Bank's solid numbers had themselves made a mockery of the mock parliament. While the BJP and NDA were working under PM Modi to remove poverty from India, he said, the Congress party under Rahul Gandhi, having failed to remove Prime Minister Modi, was engaged in spreading anarchy in the country.

Trivedi further said that those who once claimed India's economy was dead were now inviting the world's richest person, Elon Musk, to India. When Musk said he was not being allowed to enter India, these people told him, 'Dear friend Elon, come here.' According to Trivedi, they should have said, 'Dear friend Elon, India is a dead economy, why are you coming here?' He said this made it clear that India's economy was not dead, but their conscience had died. He added that Rahul Gandhi's capacity to think and understand had completely ended, and his mindset and outlook had also become lifeless.

Trivedi urged the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi to seriously consider what the reality is and what the fiction is. He asked how long they would remain entangled in fiction and keep decorating their own political funeral in order to fulfil the wishes of their troubled prince and keep his heart at peace.