A day after attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi over privatization of state-run companies, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi continued his onslaught on Friday, saying the country’s economy had sunk and the BJP-led central government was “clueless”. Taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, he said they should steal ideas from the Congress’s manifesto to tackle the “mess”.
“Rural India is in severe distress. The economy has sunk and the government is clueless about what to do. PM and FM should steal ideas from the Congress manifesto where we had anticipated and set down detailed plans to tackle the mess,” Mr Gandhi tweeted.
India’s GDP or gross domestic product grew 5 percent in the quarter ended June 30, the slowest in more than six years, triggering fears of an economic slowdown. The sales figure of many key sectors, including the auto sector, has been steadily declining over the last few months.
In response, the center has undertaken a slew of measures to revive the economy, announcing several reforms, including merging several public sector banks and slashing the corporate tax.
Congress and other opposition parties have slammed the government over the state of the economy. Former PM Manmohan Singh on Thursday said it was unlikely that India will achieve PM Modi’s promise of a 5 trillion dollar economy by 2024 due to a “vicious slowdown”.
Mr Gandhi, who is currently campaigning for his party for the Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections, has made economic slowdown his main issue to attack the government with. On Thursday, he alleged that PM Modi was involved in crony capitalism.
“#BechendraModi is contracting out the nation’s PSUs (Public Sector Undertakings) to his suited-booted supporters that endured years of hard work to produce. This spells a period of uncertainty and concern for lakhs of PSU operators. I am being shoulder-to-shoulder with the workers in their fight to this loot,” Mr Gandhi had tweeted in Hindi.
Earlier this week, Mr Gandhi had called PM Modi the loudspeaker of industrialists.
Mr Rahul Gandhi had stepped down as the Congress president following his party’s crushing defeat in the national election earlier this year. His mother Sonia Gandhi took over the party as its interim chief. His election rally in Maharashtra earlier this week was his first public appearance in months.
