Varun Gandhi: India's inequality gap frightening

Chennai, Sep 21 : The inequality gap in India is truly frightening, BJP MP Varun Gandhi said on Thursday.

"One per cent owns 63 per cent of India. The average value of the top 10 per cent of Indians is around Rs 2 crore which is 50,000 times more than the poorest of India," Gandhi said.

He was addressing over 600 students and members of faculty at the management school Great Lakes Institute of Management near here.

Close to 40 per cent of the Indian youth were employed as casual labour, Gandhi added.

The Lok Sabha member said that with nearly 30 per cent of the Indian population being poor, it was strange there was no indexation of poor people in India. "It is almost like poor people are lost in the mist around us."

He also opposed the practice of lawmakers increasing their salaries on their own.

"In the last five years, the Lok Sabha has increased salaries of MPs by four times. I have never drawn a salary. I have been an MP for around eight and a half years. Every month I used to mention the name of a NGO to whom the amount should be sent," Gandhi said.

Gandhi said that between 1952 and 1972, Parliament on an average worked 130 days a year. 

"For the last 15 years we worked 55-60 days a year at an average. Sixty-two per cent of laws were passed in Parliament without any discussion."