PM distracting India’s present with theatrics and toying with future: Rahul Gandhi on Toycathon

Taking a swipe at Narendra Modi’s call for focus on developing toys in India, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Thursday said the Prime Minister is “distracting the country’s present with theatrics and ‘toying’ with the future.”

In a tweet, Gandhi said, “Today, MSME sector employers are themselves facing unemployment… PM is distracting India’s present with theatrics and ‘toying’ with the future.”

Today, MSME sector employers are themselves facing unemployment.

PM is distracting India’s present with theatrics and ‘toying’ with the future.

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 24, 2021

His remarks came hours after PM Modi, while interacting with the participants at the Toycathon 2021 via video conferencing, urged people to be “vocal for local toys”.

Stating that India contributes only around $1.5 billion of the global toy market which is worth nearly $100 billion, Modi said, “Today, we import around 80 per cent of our toys from abroad. Which means crores of rupees of the country are going abroad on them. It is very important to change this situation.”

Further, emphasising on the importance of toys, the Prime Minister suggested that “we should focus on developing games, which present every aspect of Indianness in interesting, interactive ways”.

Toycathon 2021 was a joint initiative by the Ministry of Education, WCD Ministry, MSME Ministry, DPIIT, Textile Ministry, I&B Ministry and AICTE, held on January 5 to crowd-source innovative toys and games ideas.