Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation and the faulty implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), saying that in the last 70 years, “the foolishness of demonetisation and Gabbar Singh Tax” was not done by anybody.
Gandhi made the remarks while addressing an election rally in Uchahar in Rae Bareli, the parliamentary constituency of his mother Sonia Gandhi.
In an interview to a television channel on Friday, Modi had dismissed the economists’ speculation that demonetisation led to a rise in unemployment. “People are looking for excuses to discredit the huge decision of demonetisation,” the Prime Minister had said.
Gandhi also said that there was only one Prime Minister who stole from the poor and his name was Narendra Modi.
“Modi had lied to the country by dubbing the note ban as a fight against black money and corruption. If it was a fight against black money, why didn’t any thief stand in the queues outside the banks and the ATMs following the implementation of demonetisation in 2016,” Gandhi asked.
Accusing the Prime Minister of not filling the 22 lakh government vacancies, the Congress President said, “If the Congress comes to power, it will fill the posts within one year.”
Gandhi also promised that if his party formed the government in Uttar Pradesh, it will waive farm loans.
After addressing the rally, Gandhi also interacted with the media and accused Modi of not fulfilling his promises of providing jobs and waiving farmers’ loans.
“Modiji only lied to the nation in the last five years. The rate of unemployment is at a 45-year high and the entire youth of Uttar Pradesh know that. In all his speeches, Modiji talks about giving employment to 2 crore people. But today farmers are committing suicide as the promise of waiving their loans has not been fulfilled,” Gandhi said.
“When we came to power in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, we waived farmers’ loans in just two days,” he claimed.
The Congress President also took a jibe at BJP’s promise of depositing Rs 15 lakh into the bank account of every citizen.
“Modiji doesn’t talk about employment to the youth or the Rs 15 lakh promise. He has nothing left to speak. There is a teleprompter from which he reads his speeches and that controls him,” Gandhi said.
