Comparing the current political discourse to the battle in the epic Mahabharata, Congress President Rahul Gandhi said the BJP are like the Kauravas, who fought for power, while his party, like the Pandavas, stood for truth.
In one of his sharpest attacks on the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress chief, in his speech of almost an hour said, “The BJP has someone accused of murder as their president” and that the name ‘Modi’ “symbolises collusion with crony capitalists.”
“Like the Kauravas, the BJP and the RSS fight for power. Like the Pandavas, the Congress fights for truth. The BJP is the voice of an organisation, the Congress is the voice of a nation,” he said.
Targeting the Finance Minister without naming him, Mr. Gandhi alleged that Arun Jaitley was silent on the bank scams because he “worked for crony capitalists.”
Earlier, addressing the plenary, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused the Modi government of “messing up” the economy and mishandling the Jammu and Kashmir situation. Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told the gathering that the economy was in the hands of “ignorant and incompetent policy-makers,” who had derailed growth through reckless policies like demonetisation.
Stating that the Prime Minister was able to build a Modi maya (illusion) with the promise of Acche Din, Swach Bharat and the promise of ₹15 lakh in every bank account by retrieving black money, Mr. Gandhi accused Mr. Modi of jumping from one event to another such as surgical strikes, demonetisation, GST and mass yoga camps.
He said the government wanted to divert people’s attention from issues such as unemployment and farm distress with these “fancy’’ events.
“Instead of acknowledging the challenges facing the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi diverts our attention from our problems. We are being told that our problems only exist in our imagination.” The Congress leader added that the corrupt and powerful today “control conversation” in the country and the “name Modi symbolises the collusion between crony capitalists and the Prime Minister”.
Promising a new vision where India would take the lead, Mr Gandhi said, “There are [now] two visions in the world — of the U.S. and China. In 10 years, I want to see India’s vision there.”
Addressing party workers, he said he would break walls between them and party leaders and vowed to fill the Congress stage with “talented youngsters”.