The Congress lauded its vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s speech on Thursday terming it as visionary, and one that reflected the aspirations of youth. The BJP, however, dubbed it a lacklustre speech of a confused leader reflecting the crisis within the Congress and the fear of emergence of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said that instead of answering questions on issues like price rise, governance, corruption and terrorism, confronting the common man, Rahul raised questions instead. He said “Modiphobia” was clearly visible in his comments. Rejecting Rahul’s talk about empowering the Gram Pradhan, he said the Congress during the past nine years has disempowered the Prime Minister and this has led to the growing crisis.
“It really exemplifies the deep crisis within the Congress, in its ideologies, programmes, governance. It reflects it,” he said. The BJP has been saying this right from 2004 that here is a Prime Minister who is in office but not in power, he said adding that Rahul is a “confused leader” who presented his confused ideology which nobody could understand. Rahul had certain “illusions” in his mind that have increased.
Instead of answering questions about what has happened in the nine years of UPA rule, he was asking questions. It is a tacit admission that nothing has been done, Javadekar said.
However, Congress spokesman P C Chacko said BJP was criticizing Rahul’s inspiring speech about empowering one billion people as it has made the opposition party nervous and scared of him. They had never expected such an inspiring speech from Rahul, he said.
He rejected BJP’s criticism saying that policy issues like corruption, price rise and FDI in retail are decided by the Prime Minister and Finance Minister and the PM in his address to CII a day before had informed about GDP growth rate of 8 percent. Rahul’s address was above all these, he said adding it would be wrong to compare Rahul with Modi as he is a young man with ideas about how to tackle ills of the society and empower people at the grass root level.
Cautious about Rahul’s assertion that the issue of his becoming the Prime Minister is an irrelevant question, Chacko said that it only shows that he is not attaching importance to becoming the PM, but it does not mean that he will not become PM. “Don’t read meaning into it.”
India Inc, whom Rahul had addressed at the CII AGM, hailed his speech as inspiring, but critics flayed that Rahul’s speech was vague and had not provided any concrete solution to anyone. Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy highlighted Rahul’s slip of tongue when he mentioned “Rani ki Jhansi instead of Jhansi ki Rani.” Film actor Shabana Azmi appreciated the fact that Rahul spoke from his heart as he has internalized all the thoughts about empowering the masses. But most people said that Rahul’s speech lacked substance or vision about the future economic scenario and on issues like black money, corruption, rising inflation or increasing industrial growth and development.