Combative Rahul in Bihar. A rejuvenated Rahul Gandhi is back and he wants to lead from the front or so it would seem from his speeches in the last two days – at a farmers rally on Sunday and in Parliament today. The Congress yuvraj accused the NDA government of being "pro-industrialist" and advised Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to ignore farmers who are more than 60 percent of the country's population.
“He (Modi) will gain politically if he changes his side. You are hurting the farmers and in the coming times they will hurt you,” said Gandhi, who made his appearance in Parliament for the first time in the budget session after a 56-day sabbatical.
The Congress vice president, who was intervening in a debate on the agrarian crisis, accused the NDA government of neglecting farmers and farm labourers. “The price of land is increasing fast and your corporate friends want this land and you are controlling the farmers, and when he (farmer) becomes weak then you will hit him with your ordinance axe. That is why you are ready to make 60 percent people angry,” he said.
“He knows the calculation well, I wonder how he can make a mistake of annoying them,” Gandhi said amid cheers from his party men.
“Yours is a government of the rich, government of suited-booted people, who do not understand that the real power of the country lies with its farmers and labourers, and not with the coporates,” he said.
He said while the Modi government talked about strengthening the country, it was ignoring the farmers. “How can you talk about strengthening the country…the foundation of the country is the farmer.”
As the ruling benches tried to interrupt his speech many times, the Gandhi family scion took them on stoically. “I am sorry to say that on the matter of Minimum Support Price (MSP) and agricultural credit, the ‘acche din’ government has failed the country,” he said.
Reading out the past records of Minimum Selling Price (MSP) given by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments at different point of time, he said ever since the NDA government took over only meagre increments were made in the MSP of farmers’ produce.
“Your prime minister spoke to farmers and said he will look after them. I would like to give a suggestion to him. Why doesn’t the prime minister go and see for himself that wheat is lying in the market and the government is not buying it…farmers are not being given fertilizers.”
Gandhi, who returned from a long holiday abroad, addressed a farmers’ rally in the capital on Sunday where he raised similar issues. Gandhi also accused the Modi government of not presenting right picture before the country on important issues.
Talking about the government’s assessment of recent damage to wheat and other crops in the country, the Congress vice president said the prime minister, the agriculture ministry and the Bharatiya Janata Party gave different figures of crops affected.
The government earlier in the day tabled the land acquisition ordinance in the Lok Sabha amid protests from the opposition. The Congress and Trinamool Congress staged a walkout over the issue.
The Congress scion on Sunday had accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of seeking to return the “debt of industrialists” by giving away farm land and vowed to fight for farmers’ interests and against the “weakened” land bill in his first public rally after returning from a 56-day leave of absence. The BJP hit back, wondering how many times the Congress will launch him.
The Congress sought to put the Narendra Modi government on notice over its land bill with all its top leaders – Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh – signalling the party’s intention to make it a rallying point in the party’s efforts to revive itself electorally after the debacle in the last Lok Sabha election.
“How did Modi win the election? He took loans of thousands of crores from big industrialists from which his campaigning was done. How will he meet the obligation? He will do it by giving (them) your land. He wants to weaken the land bill,” Rahul Gandhi said at a well attended Kisan-Khet Mazdooor rally at the Ramlila Maidan here.
The rally was also seen as an occasion to highlight Rahul Gandhi’s role in taking up causes of farmers and in getting the land bill passed in 2013 during the rule of United Progressive Alliance.
In his 25-minute speech he charged that the government wants that farmers do not get adequate price for their crops, do not get fertiliser and are not able to stand on their feet.
“Then, they will purchase your land and give it to industrialists… He (Modi) showed how in the Gujarat model land can be taken. What he (Modi) did in Gujarat, he wants to do it in India… Modi wants to weaken the foundation. This is Modi’s model — weaken the foundation, then attach a ladder to the building, paint it from the outside and show a deceptive image to the world even as the building crumbles from inside.”
Speaking extempore, Rahul Gandhi said the Congress was firmly with the farmers and the poor. “Wherever there is attempt to snatch their land, Congress leaders will be there. I will be there.”
Rahul Gandhi took exception to the reported remarks of Modi that he wants to remove “kachra” (dirt) of the past 50 years and said such words do not behove the post of prime minister.
The Bharatiya Janata Party reacted strongly to Rahul Gandhi’s jibes at Modi. “How many times will the Congress launch Rahul Gandhi,” BJP leader and union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked. He accused Rahul Gandhi of insulting the popular mandate of the last Lok Sabha election and sought an apology from him.
Prasad also hit back at Rahul Gandhi for his references to the Gujarat model. “We want to ask Sonia and Rahul as to what is the Vadra model of development and land acquisition?” Prasad asked, referring to the controversy over the land deals involving Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra.
In her speech, Congress president Sonia Gandhi accused the Modi government of adding to the problems of farmers. “Enough is enough. We will not allow interests of farmers, the poor and labourers to be marginalised with such ruthlessness,” she said and enumerated steps taken by the erstwhile UPA government for the benefit of farmers.
She said farmers were facing problems due to unseasonal rains and the central government had changed the land law through an ordinance to “benefit private companies”.
“It is like adding insult to the injury of farmers,” she said, adding that the the 2013 Act had provisions for creation of infrastructure, employment and irrigation but the Modi government was misleading farmers.
The new land bill will also adversely affect lives of tribals, she added. “We have got new energy. We will fight with more force,” she said.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh said the new land bill will hurt the interests of farmers.
There were some odd moments for the party as a group of farmers wearing pink turbans, believed to be supporters of former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, left soon after Rahul Gandhi finished his speech and before Sonia Gandhi took over the microphone.
The Congress downplayed it saying that they left due to harsh weather. (IANS)