ISLAMABAD, Feb 2 (APP): Indian Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Wednesday attacked Narendra Modi’s government for committing a “huge strategic mistake” in Kashmir, the imprudent foreign policy that isolated India and for promoting the elitist economy.
“We have made huge strategic mistakes in J&K and in our foreign policy… Ask yourself why you are not able to get a guest on Republic Day. India today is completely isolated and surrounded,” the Congress leader said addressing the Lok Sabha during the motion of thanks to the President’s address.
He told the Indian parliament that the country had been surrounded by adversaries on all sides and was isolated in the region.
“The nation is at risk from outside and inside. and I don’t like that. This worries me,” he added.
“Do not underestimate what we are facing. This is a serious threat to India,” he said, adding that we made a “huge strategic mistake” in Jammu and Kashmir, referring to the revocation of Article 370 that revoked the special status granted to the state.
He also questioned the Modi government’s failure to get any world leader on the country’s Republic Day.
Ask yourselves why you are not able to get a guest on Republic Day. Today India is completely isolated & surrounded. We are surrounded in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Burma, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China. Everywhere we are surrounded. Our opponents understand our position. We have been weakened. Our institutions are under attack,” he commented and also mentioned the strengthening China-Pakistan relations.
“This is the single biggest crime against the people of India,” he remarked.
Narrating the ordeal his political family had gone through, the Congress leader recalled that his great grandfather had been jailed for 15 years, the grandmother was shot 32 times and father had been blown to bits.
“So I know what I am talking about. You are fiddling with something very, very dangerous. I am advising you to stop. If you don’t stop you will create a problem,” he warned the Modi government.
Touching the widening rift among the Indian states, Rahul Gandhi said the idea of a king had come back which Congress had removed in 1947.
“Now there is a shehanshah (monarch). So, for example, today the idea of Tamil Nadu is excluded from the Indian institution. You are saying get out of here. They don’t have a voice,” he commented.
He said the farmers of Punjab also did not have a voice. They died during the coronavirus pandemic during their protests. But the king didn’t listen, he added.
Criticizing Narendra Modi’s elitist economic policies, Gandhi said currently, there were two Indias – one for the poor and one for the rich. The chasm between these two Indias is increasing continuously.
He said there was a 46% drop in manufacturing jobs in India because the government was completely focused on 5-10 people. Referring to industrial tycoons, Ambani and Adani, he said the AA variant was spreading across the Indian economy.
“You talk of Made in India. But there cannot be Made in India today. The matter has ended because who are the people involved in Made in India? Small and medium industry, unorganised sector – whom you have finished. Made in India is not going to take place,” he commented.
