Rahul slams Modi on Rafale, loan waiver on his home turf
HARD TALK Promises to simplify the Goods and Services Tax if Congress comes to power
VALSAD: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that the slogan “chowkidar chor hai” is famous all over the country.
“Earlier, there used to be the slogan ‘achche din’ and you used to say ‘ayenge’. But today, that slogan has been replaced by ‘chowkidaar chor hai’. So much so that even the former French president also says ‘chowkidaar chor hai’,” Rahul Gandhi said at a Jan Aakrosh rally at Valsad in Gujarat.
The Congress chief began his assault on PM Modi with the Rafale issue and alleged, “The PM took money from the air force and air force pilots and gave it to Anil Ambani”.
He said that he had asked the prime minister four questions on the Rafale deal. “The PM spoke for 90 minutes, looked here, there and everywhere, but did not answer a single question from the four that I had asked,” Rahul Gandhi said.
From Rafale, Rahul Gandhi moved on to the issue of loan waivers for f a r mers, a nd claimed that the PM had outright refused to waive the loans of farmers. “The farmers of the country are asking the PM to waive off their loans, but both the PM and Arun Jaitley say they will not do it because it is not their policy. On the other hand, they waive off loans worth ~3.5 lakh crore of people like Anil Ambani, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya,” Rahul said. He went on to give the example of how t he newly formed Congress governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh waived off the loans of farmers within two days of coming to power.
“It didn’t take us 10 days, we did it in 2 days. There is no dearth of money,” Rahul Gandhi said.
Listing out the projects that had been started by the BJP government such as the Bharat Mala Project, the Bullet train project and the industrial corridor project, Rahul Gandhi said, “We aren’t against them. But the farmers and tribals need justice. If you can give the Rafale contract to Anil Ambani, you must give justice to the farmers and tribals as well.”
He said that in Gujarat, Modi claims that the government is working on the Bharat Mala Project. “It is not the Bharat Mala project. It is the Bharat mara project. They are killing the country,” Rahul said.
Touching upon the issue of demonetisation, Rahul said that when Modi announced the note ban, no rich industrialist like Anil Ambani stood in line, but it was the poor, the farmers and the tribals who were fored to stand in lines. “The rich got their black money converted t o white through back channels means,” Rahul Gandhi said, claiming that the prime minister’s move had adversely affected the small and medium traders.
“Now, when you go to Modi and ask him to waive off the loans, he calls you thieves and refuses to waive your loans,” Rahul said. Rahul Gandhi then went on to talk about the Goods and Services Tax, referring to it as “Gabbar Singh Tax”, he said that the small and medium traders had not understood it. “If Congress comes to power, we’ll simplify it,” he said. The Congress president went on to speak about a revolution that he and his party were planning to bring about if his party came to power.