New Delhi, June 28 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi today spoke about a number of social issues in his monthly radio address but chose to avoid any reference to the political storm that has been generated by Lalit Modi issue for which Congress warned him that the issue will continue to “haunt” him.

CPI and AAP also attacked Modi for remaining silent on the controversy.

In his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ programme on radio, Modi refrained from speaking on politics or the recent controversies surrounding Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj over the Lalit Modi issue which some quarters were expecting.

Among various topics, he talked about the girl child, voicing concern over the depleting sex ratio in 100 districts of the country, with the situation being more serious in Haryana. He pitched for a mass campaign to save the girl child.

During the 20-minute programme, he also spoke about the recently-launched three social security schemes and three developmental schemes, including ‘housing for all’ by 2022, as well as the Yoga Day celebrated on June 21. He also emphasised on the need for saving water and planting trees to preserve the environment.

Speaking soon after the ‘Man ki Baat’ programme was aired, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad expressed disappointment over the “failure” of the Prime Minister to speak on Lalit Modi controversy.

His other senior party colleagues P Chidambaram and Digvijay Singh as also CPI’s D Raja and AAP leader Ashish Khetan.

“All over India, no one is ready to listen to ‘Mann Ki Baat….Everyone wants to listen to voice of people in the programme,” said Azad, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha.

Taking a dig at Modi, Azad said he continued to be a “dream merchant” in the programme as he has been merely selling dreams in India and abroad.

“It is in the interest of the Prime Minister to take immediate action against those involved in corruption.

Otherwise nationally and internationally, it is going to haunt him wherever he goes,” he told reporters. .

New Delhi, Jun 25 (PTI) The Aam Aadmi Party government today presented a Rs 41,129 crore budget with a major focus on education, health and transport sectors besides allocating funds to provide free wifi facility in colleges and villages.

Presenting the budget, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said his government will put major focus on reforming tax collection system and asserted that it will develop Delhi as a world-class skill centre and medical hub.

Calling it the country’s first “Swaraj” Budget, he said government has decided brought down the Value Added Tax rates for certain items.

Reaching out to the youth, he announced free wi-fi facility in all colleges as the AAP government’s first budget saw a 106 per cent rise in allocation to education sector.

He said the Budget document was a milestone towards achieving the ideal of “Swaraj” and a development model that was driven from the bottom instead of a top-driven one as it was prepared by the public at the ‘Mohalla Sabhas’.

In the budget, Rs 19,000 crore has been set aside for plan outlay while the non-plan outlay stands at Rs 22,129 crore.

“The government is working towards making Delhi the first corruption free city in the country,” Sisodia, who holds the finance portfolio, said.

The government allocated Rs 9,836 crore for the education sector out of which Rs 4570 crore was given under the plan outlay, an increase of around 106 per cent over the last budget.

“This (increase) is probably a first in the country which indicates our commitment to the cause of education. For us it is not expenditure but investment,” Sisodia said.

He said the government was in the process of installing CCTV cameras in all classrooms of government schools across Delhi to bring in “transparency and accountability”.

“We are also trying to inculcate value in the education.

and education with skill and value. Fifty schools would be developed as model schools in this regard,” he said.

Stressing on skill development, he said Rs 310 crore has been alloted for skill development and proposed the establishment of a skill university.

As BJP faces more heat over the controversies surrounding four of its women ministers, the Congress and the AAP today staged protests here and demanded that they be sacked and targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “inaction”.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje are embroiled in a row over extending help to tainted former IPL boss Lalit Modi while HRD Minister Smriti Irani faced trouble with a Delhi court taking cognizance of a complaint against her for allegedly misrepresenting educational qualifications in her election affidavits. Maharashtra minister Pankaja Munde is the fourth minister caught in a row.

Sharpening its attack on BJP after the emergence of a document backing Lalit Modi’s immigration application in the UK which purportedly bears Raje’s signature, the Congress said the party should ask the Chief Minister to step down as it can no longer “continue to defend the indefensible”.

“I am of the opinion that after what has now been made public, there is absolutely no scope left, no face left for BJP to manoeuvre and defend its leadership,” it said.

“There cannot be two laws in this country. One for common citizens and one for high-ranking BJP officials. Therefore… I think it is in the best interest of the state and also of BJP to ask the chief minister to put in her papers as soon as possible,” Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot said.

Dismissing as being “lame” BJP’s claim that the signature in the said document are forged, Pilot said, “I don’t think it is possible for anyone to put up that lame an argument… And, if she had to deny the signatures, she should have done it perhaps in the beginning.”

Pilot’s remarks came amid reports that claimed that the signature on the affidavit to help Modi get UK stay permit indeed belonged to Raje putting the chief minister and the BJP leadership in a spot. There was no official word yet on the authenticity of the signature.

The BJP has rejected demands for resignation of the ministers.

Congress staged twin protests at Jantar Mantar and outside its headquarters and demanded the immediate resignation of Swaraj, Irani and Raje.

The protesters also tore an effigy of Irani and placards inscribed with messages that mocked the “farce” of her academic qualifications and warned the government against “toying with education”.

Scores of AAP workers staged a protest outside Irani’s residence demanding her resignation.

Congress’s Delhi unit chief Lalit Maken accused the prime minister of “inaction” in the wake of the raging controversies involving his party leaders.

He also raised the issue of allegations against Munde and accused her of “playing with the health of children”.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis Munde, however, said “prima facie” there appears to be no discrepancies in the case involving her department, as alleged by the opposition.

Munde, who is the Minister for Women and Development, was at the centre of a controversy with the Congress accusing her of involvement in a “scam” by clearing purchases worth Rs 206 crore on a single day instead of inviting tenders in violation of the norms.