Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday lambasted the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not conceding to “China’s incursion to protect his image”, blaming the media for helping him in doing so.
“Modi is not interested in India’s people but is only concerned about protecting and promoting his image, which would have got dented had he admitted to China’s incursion. The media, by helping promote his image, is also to blame,” said Rahul while addressing the media on the third and final day of his three-day ‘Kheti Bachao Yatra’ against the black farm laws.
Continuing his tirade against the Prime Minister, Rahul said that Modi was comfortable in the knowledge that the press would project his one-sided statements. “Why don’t you question him at press conferences,” he asked the media.
Categorically rejecting the suggestion that the Central Government was able to take unilateral decisions because of a “weak Opposition”, Rahul Gandhi asked to provide him “free press and other key institutions”, while declaring that the Narendra Modi Government would not last long.
“Give me free press and free institutions and this (Narendra Modi) Government won't last long,” he declared.
He said that the Modi Government has taken control of all key institutions, and it has done so not democratically but forcibly. “The BJP Government has captured the soul of the country, which is what the Congress is fighting,” he said, adding that this fight will become more and more aggressive, going forward.
Terming the control of institutions by the Government a “big problem”, Rahul noted that no other country in the world today is faced with a situation where even the media does not question the Government when its land has been seized by another nation.
Pointing out that the Opposition in any country functions within a framework, including the media, the judicial system, and institutions that protect the voice of the people, he said: “In India, that entire framework has been controlled and captured by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Government, the entire architecture designed for giving voice to the people has been captured.”
“While the government may have captured the institutions, the fact is that they cannot control the farmers, the youth, and the small traders, whose interests they are destroying. I work among these people, who are the hardest hit by Modi’s policies. I am a patient person, and will wait till the people of India see the truth,” added Rahul, who was flanked by Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh.
Rahul, on the Centre’s three new farm laws, said that he was committed to fighting against the Modi Government’s attack on farmers, just as they had earlier targeted SMEs and small traders with demonetization and GST. “I will fight them and stop them,” he declared, pointing out that if MSP goes, Punjab, Haryana, and other agricultural states like Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan will have no future left.
He slammed the Modi Government for destroying key systems such as SMEs and small businesses, which were the backbone of the nation and were generating employment for lakhs of youth, on directives of big corporate houses.
“The trio of Modi, Ambani and Adani has ruined the structure of employment by destroying SMEs, now they are destroying the foundations of agriculture, and soon the people of India will be left with no jobs, nor food, and no future,” he warned.
Asked to comment on BJP’s claims that the farm laws, just like demonetization and GST, were major achievements of the Modi Government, Rahul told the media to go and ask the small traders and businessmen, and the farmers, whether they considered these actions to be accomplishments or failures. “If the Farm Laws are an achievement, then why are the farmers not celebrating, why are they not bursting firecrackers with joy?” he asked.