Hyderabad: AICC chief Rahul Gandhi on Monday criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi for dividing India on communal lines and alleged that he had become the ‘chowkidar’ of people like Anil Ambani and Mehul Choksi.
“Modi divided India into two — one for the rich and the other for the poor,” Mr Gandhi said at a public meeting in Zaheerabad, kicking off his Lok Sabha election campaign in the state. If the Congress came to power, Mr Gandhi promised a surgical strike on poverty unlike Mr Modi’s “surgical strike on the poor”. He assured farmers of minimum support price and employment to youth.
Mr Gandhi said the BJP wanted to fill the coffers of only a handful of rich businessmen. “He (Mr Modi) can only do two things; one is to protect the biggest thieves of India and the other is to create hatred among people,” he said.
He said that Mr Modi had promised to deposit Rs 15 lakh in the account of every citizen but was busy safeguarding the money of the rich. “Since six months, the Congress think tank was planning to come out with a scheme to help the poor. During our analysis, we found that Rs 15 lakh cannot be deposited into every citizen’s bank account,” he said.
“Our think tank came up with the figure of Rs 72,000 every year in the bank accounts of the poor. There are around five crore poor people whose income is less than Rs 12,000 per month. We will deposit the same amount in their accounts,” he said.
Mr Gandhi said that China provides employment to 25,000 youth in a 24-hour period. In the same timeframe, the Modi government takes away the jobs of 27,000 youth, he said.
Mr Gandhi said, “Demonetisation was aimed at emptying the pockets of the poor and filling the pockets of the rich. Mr Modi said that it was a fight against black money and requested the common public to stand in queues. Neither Anil Ambani, Mehul Choksi, Nirav Modi nor Lalit Modi stood in the line.”
He said that the Congress would spend 6 per cent of the GDP on improving education. “We will build new universities and colleges and give scholarships which were denied by the NDA government. We will build new government hospitals and will bring peace by curbing communal forces,” he said.
He promised bahujan adhikar, an Adivasis’ bill and a telecom revolution. “Youth can start their business through a single window system. The government will ask about permissions only after three years. We will help the youth get loans from banks to set up their own businesses to ensure there is no unemployment,” the Congress chief said.
“We will ensure minimum support price for farmers and link the them with the food processing units near their land and increase storage facility,” he said.
Many locals were upset that there was no translator to translate Mr Gandhi’s speech into Telugu.
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