In one of his sharpest attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi called him a “56-inch boxer” who was elected to fight the country’s problems but he instead began delivering punches to the country’s farmers and traders in the form of schemes such as Goods and Services Tax (GST) and demonetisation.

The Congress president made these comments during his ‘Ab Hoga Nyay’ rally in Haryana’s Bhiwani district in support of Congress Lok Sabha candidate Shruti Choudhry.

Calling Bhiwani district the upcoming boxing capital of the world - Olympian and Congress’s Delhi candidate Vijender Singh belongs from here - Rahul Gandhi said the country also elected a “56-inch boxer” during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections to fight unemployment and corruption.

“The 56-inch chest boxer came in the election ring amid loud cheers from the public. However, instead of fighting farmers’ issues, corruption and unemployment, the boxer punched his coach Lal Krishna Advani in the face first. Boxer ring mein aayaa... apne coach Advani ji ki taraf dekha... ek ghoosa unke muh par maara... He then punched his other team members Nitin Gadkari and Arun Jaitley. The boxer then came out of the ring and went in between the public to deliver blows to small shopkeepers in the form of GST and demonetisation. The farmers in the public confronted him and reminded him that he promised to fight for them, but he punched the farmers, too,” Rahul said.

The Congress president said that in the five years of Modi’s government, he did not even know what he was fighting. “Modi ji you were not supposed fight the public of the country. You were also not supposed to fight the opposition. You needed to fight unemployment and corruption but you failed,” he said.

Slamming PM Modi for allegedly promising Rs 15 lakh to every citizen, Rahul said the promise was not feasible at all for the country. “For our NYAY scheme, we consulted top economists who took four months to chalk out the scheme. They told us that giving Rs 72,000 per year to 25 crore people was possible in our country’s economy,” he said.

First Published: May 06, 2019 16:36 IST