Talk on governance, not personal issues, Rahul tells Modi

Taking exception to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “personal attacks” against him, Congress president Rahul Gandhi asked the Prime Minister to speak on governance and development issues instead of personally attacking his critics.

Addressing a public gathering here on Thursday, Mr. Gandhi said that the way that Mr. Modi spoke in public platforms was not something that was expected from the Prime Minister. He said that Mr. Modi was resorting to personal attacks as he had nothing to say in response to the questions raised on his governance.

“I had asked a couple of questions. Since Mr. Modi gives lengthy speeches on corruption, I had first asked him why his party had chosen Mr. [B.S] Yeddyurappa, the man who went to jail on corruption charges, as its Chief Ministerial candidate for Karnataka. Secondly, I had asked him why he allowed Nirav Modi to escape with ₹ 30,000 crore public money, the amount equal to the money that the previous UPA government annually spent for providing work to rural labourers under MNREGA. Thirdly, I have asked him how his friend Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah multiplied ₹ 50,000 to make it ₹ 80 crore in a year. Since he didn’t have answers to these questions, he chose to ridicule me with personal attacks.”

“Let him [Mr. Modi] attack as much as he wants. It doesn’t make any difference to me. As a responsible citizen of India, I don’t counter my Prime Minister in the same way that he does. I don’t personally attack him. But, I continue to ask him questions. This is the difference between him and me,” Mr. Gandhi said.

The Congress president said that Mr. Modi did not have any issue to criticise the Siddaramaiah government either. “Siddaramaiah government has given free education to children. It has distributed free rice to poor to mitigate their hunger. It has improved the infrastructure in such a way that even the BJP president Amit Shah accepted it once. Since Mr. Modi has no issues, he resorts to personal attacks.”

Claiming that the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in the State fulfilled 90% of the promises in the last Assembly elections, Mr. Gandhi said that none of the promises made by BJP during the last Lok Sabha elections was fulfilled.

“Talk about your pre-poll promises. Talk about your assurance of bringing black money from abroad and depositing Rs. 15 lakh into the account of every citizen. Tell people of Karnataka what kind of governance you would give if you come to power... Talking only about me without uttering a word about these issues doesn’t help you much,” he told Mr. Modi.

While comparing the performances of governments of Mr. Modi and Mr. Siddaramaiah, Mr. Gandhi repeatedly quoted from the vachana composition 12th-century social reformer Basavanna, saying “Nudidante Nade” [do as you say].

Terming the Union government anti-farmer, Mr. Gandhi said that Mr. Modi did not utter a word “when we demanded waiver of farm loans borrowed from nationalised banks.”

“Mr. Modi did not waive farmers’ loans. But he did write off around Rs. 2.5 lakh crore corporate loans borrowed by 15 richest businessmen. When I asked your Chief Minister Siddaramaiah whether he could waive farmers’ loans borrowed by cooperative institutions, he waived them within 10 days. There is no place for poor in the BJP’s heart,” Mr. Rahul said.

Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha M. Mallikarjun Kharge, AICC general secretary and in-charge of Karnataka K.C. Venugopal, party leader K.H. Muniyappa, Minister Eshwar Khandre, MLC Vijay Singh and others were present.