Rahul Gandhi in Parliament Wednesday (Express photo by Renuka Puri)
Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked the Congress in his speeches in Parliament, Congress president Rahul Gandhi hit back saying the PM was dwelling on the past as he “does not know how to take India forward”. He said the Prime Minister has delivered a “visionless election speech to divert the nation’s attention from unemployment, agrarian distress and tension at the border”.
“We are happy with the Prime Minister to be obsessed with the Congress party, but it is a disservice for our Prime Minister to spend much time on the Congress and so little on the future of the nation. The nation has reposed its trust in the Prime Minister. It expects the Prime Minister to respond with seriousness towards its problems,” Rahul said. He said the Prime Minister delivered a “political and campaign” speech.
Rahul said India is facing three critical problems today. “Each day over 30,000 youth enter the job market. Of these we can provide only 450 of them a job. We are creating an Army of one million new unemployed youth each month. Agriculture, India’s backbone, is under severe stress. Inadequate remuneration and a lack of government support is breaking the will of our farmers and forcing them to commit suicide. India faces new dangers on her borders with frequent cease-fire violations by Pakistan… and a Chinese build-up near Doklam. The security of our nation is in peril,” he said.
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Rahul said the nation expected the Prime Minister to address these issues and “provide us with a vision”. “We were waiting to support and applaud him for such a vision. Instead the Prime Minister’s speech today was an attempt at diverting the nation’s attention from these three problems. The truth is the Prime Minister does not know how to take India forward. That is why he always reaches into the past,” he said.
Rahul also reiterated his charges against the Prime Minister over the Rafale fighter plane deal. He said the Prime Minister has time and again spoken about corruption and his commitment to stamp it out but “now when confronted with Rafale, in which he directly intervened…he is completed silent”.
“Did the Prime Minister get the necessary clearances from the Cabinet Committee on Security before he negotiated and committed to the purchase of Rafale aircraft in France? How much did the Prime Minister agree to pay for each aircraft? Why did the Prime Minister bypass HAL and prefer to favour a private entity with no previous defense production experience?” he asked.
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He said Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had earlier committed to answering all these questions but has not reneged on her commitment and the Prime Minister has nothing to say. “Instead, the PM chooses to take credit for purchasing a cheaper solar panels and cheaper gas, when it is widely known that the international prices of these have plummeted in recent years….We expected a vision. Instead we got a visionless election speech. It didn’t have the gravitas or maturity you would expect of the Prime Minister,” he said.
Talking to reporters, he said there was corruption in the Rafale deal and added that the PM is protecting those involved in corruption.