New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, in a fiery speech in parliament today, targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the “idea of a king is back”, and accused the BJP of weakening India.
There are now two distinct Indias, he said, one of the rich and the other of the poor. “The gap between the two is growing,” he said in the Lok Sabha.
“You keep talking about Make in India, Make in India. Make in India is not possible anymore. You have destroyed ‘Made in India’. You need to support small and medium industries, otherwise ‘Make in India’ is not possible. Small and medium industries are the only ones who can create jobs. You keep talking about Made in India, New India, Start-Up India, etc. And joblessness is only increasing.”
The Congress MP tore into the government over unemployment and said it was because of “your flawed vision that two Indias are being created.”
Mr Gandhi also accused the ruling BJP of bringing back the idea of a “king of India”.
“You will never ever in your life rule over the people of Tamil Nadu. No matter what fantasies you have, you will never ever rule over the people of a state of India,” he said as he illustrated his point on cooperative federalism, “conversation and negotiation”.
“That is the only way India has been ruled. You can look at Ashoka, Maurya, the country has always been ruled by conversation and negotiation,” he said.
“My great grandfather was jailed for 15 years while he was building this thing. My grandmother was shot 32 times. My father was blown to bits. So I understand a little bit about what this country is. You are fiddling with something very, very dangerous. I am advising you to stop. Because if you don’t stop you will create a problem. The problem has already started in the Northeast, in Tamil Nadu – it’s not visible to you right now – Jammu and Kashmir,” Mr Gandhi said.
