Rahul launches scathing attack on PM

Continuing his tirade against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress VicePresident Rahul Gandhi on Friday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and RSS want India to surrender its voice. “What is happening today is the systematic capture of India’s democratic institutions. By the PM, bureaucrats and the RSS,” Gandhi said.

Taking on the prime minister directly, Gandhi said, ”The emperor is completely naked but nobody around him has the courage to tell him.”

Describing the current situation in the country as “strangulation of reality”, Gandhi accused the government of crushing people’s voices and trampling the poor and weak.

“BJP wants to paint a lie over India so that they can return it to an age of kings and no questions, where people were humiliated by power; where people’s voices were crushed, where the poor and weak were trampled upon. Where millions of Indians were untouchables,” he said while addressing a conference at Karnataka government’s ’Quest for Equity’ event to mark the birth anniversary of founding father BR Ambedkar.

The Congress leader attacked the ruling dispensation on a wide range of issues. On demonetisation, Gandhi said the government called the economic policy as “a stroke of genius” publicly while they called it “insanity” privately. “Thousands of businesses are wiped out due to demonetization, hundreds die, but instead of speaking to the Parliament, Modi spoke to Coldplay,” he said.

Last year, PM Modi had announced the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from public use with an aim to curb the menace of black money, fake currency, terror funding and corruption. The move was criticised as it left the country reeling under severe cash crunch and adversely affected the economy.