A day after Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswamy told his Coimbatore audience that all is well with the industries sector in Tamil Nadu, an entrepreneur with 35 years’ experience opened up the woes of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises before Rahul Gandhi MP, the former President of the Congress.
The scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family reached Coimbatore on Saturday as part of the election campaign to the State Legislative Assembly and he took time off to interact with the industrialists of Tamil Nadu to enlist their cooperation.
K E Raghunathan, president, Consortium of Industries Association (CIA), who is a vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Sangh Parivar, made use of the opportunity to tear into the claims of the Centre and State Governments that all were fine in the industrial sector. “Rahul Ji, You are the only voice for us and please do not let us down,” pleaded Reghunathan who introduced himself as a representative of the 3.5 lakh industrial units.
He said that out of the seven crore MSMEs in the country 30 per cemt is dead. “This means 2.1 crore units that employ almost 20 crore people. We are facing severe shortage of money, manpower and materials. The banks and Non Banking Financial Corporations are chasing us. We are facing a peculiar situation as we cannot even cry openly. We are not able to raise our voice . If I cry openly nobody will trust me,” charged an emotional Reghunathan while Rahul Gandhi stood in rapt attention listening to him.
Reghunathan said the present Government at the Centre had promised of Skill India, Digital India, Make In India and Atmanirbhar schemes. “Now we are hearing a new slogan, Fund India which is nothing but Foreign Direct Investment,” said Reghunathan who has been campaigning against the policies of the government through social media.
Rahul Gandhi thanked the entrepreneur and assured him that irrespective of the fact that he is in the opposition or in the government, the MSMEs would get all his attention.