Mangaluru: AICC President Rahul Gandhi termed the union government led by Narendra Modi as a flop show. He criticised the failure of the central government initiatives such as Make in India, Swacch Bharath and Start Up India.
He was addressing a massive crowd at the “Janashirvad Yatra” at Nehru Maidan in Mangaluru on March 20.
Rahul began his speech by greeting the people in Tulu saying, “Nikuleg maatheregla namaskara (greetings to all)”.
Equating the BJP to Kauravas from the epic of Mahabharatha, Rahul said, “They (BJP) are ready to do anything to gain power. BJP has bought MLAs in Goa. They have come to power by by shelling out money in Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Manipur.”
Taking a dig at BJP President Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi said, “There is an accusation of murder against him. They are ready to do anything for power and the nation knows about it.”
Further, he added that people of India knew that Congress stood for truth.
Rahul said that Narendra Modi often lied to the people. “The Prime Minister promised to return Rs 15 Lakh into the account of each citizen by hunting down the black money. Not one paisa is returned till now”, he ridiculed.
He asked the prime minister, “Nudidanthe nade Modiji (Act as you speak Modiji)
“During his foreign visits, Narendra Modi claims that nothing had been accomplished in the 70 years since independence. He is insulting your parents and grandparents by such words. He is insulting the people of India”, Rahul said.
Touching upon the sorry state of employment in India, Rahul said, “PM Modi also promised to create 2 crore new jobs in 4 years. When asked about how many jobs were created, his minister replies we have created 1 lakh jobs in India in the past one year.”
He also criticised the “problems” caused by demonetisation and said, “When people were standing in line to exchange the demonetised currency at the banks, friends of Modi laundered their black money through the backdoor.”
He opposed the “silence” of the prime minister in the recent bank scams and said, “Nirav Modi and his relatives whom Narendra Modi knows very well fled with Rs 22 Lakh Crore of people’s money. India’s chowkidar [watchman] remained silent.”
Rahul also came down heavily on the “silence” of PM Modi about the sorry state of businesses in India. He said, “Several companies are shut down. But only Amit Shah’s son’s company has turned Rs 50,000 into Rs 80 Crore in just 3 months.”
He also questioned the government for “inflating” Rafale Deal in its blame game and said that, “Congress party had negotiated Rafale Deal at Rs 570 Crore per aircraft. Modi changed the Rafale contract in his Paris visit. HAL, which has 70 years of experience in aircraft building was supposed to assemble the planes in India. Modi has also diverted the contract to his business friend who has no experience of building any aircraft.”
He further alleged, “Narendra Modi is paying Rs 1,670 Crore for each Rafale aircraft.. It is 3 times more than the contract made when Congress government was in power. Who will bear this additional cost of Rs 40,000 Crore? Modi is just putting money into his friend’s pockets.”
He criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party by saying, “BJP is a voice of an organisation. They work for an organisation. But, Congress works for the nation. BJP is ready to do anything for the organisation but Congress is ready to do anything for the sake of the nation. This is the difference between BJP and Congress.”
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, KPCC president Dr Parameshwara, Karnataka Energy minister D K Shivakumar, Congress Karnataka in-charge K C Venugopal, Mallikarjuna Kharge, U T Khader, S R Patil, Dr Veerappa Moily, Pramod Madhwaraj, Vinay Kumar Sorake, Ivan D’Souza, J R Lobo, Mohiuddin Bava, Kavita Sanil and other Congress leaders were present at the event.
Few party workers were seen pelting water bottles at media persons, espcially news cameramen.
