Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hit out at the Modi government on centralisation saying India is a union of states and it cannot be ruled as a ‘kingdom’.
Staff Reporter / NEW DELHI
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today hit out at the Modi government on centralisation saying India is a union of states and it cannot be ruled as a ‘kingdom’.
Addressing the Lok Sabha during the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address, Rahul Gandhi said, “India is described in the Indian Constitution as a union of states and not as a nation. One cannot rule over the people of a state in India. Different languages and cultures cannot be suppressed. It is a partnership, not a kingdom.”
The former Congress chief stressed the importance of cooperative federalism, conversation and negotiation and said that is the only way India has been ruled over the decades.
“Congress smashed the idea of a king in 1947, but now that has come back. There is a vision that India can be ruled by a stick from the Centre. Every time that has happened, the stick has been broken,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi also claimed that one of the key points missing from the President’s address was the gulf between the extremely wealthy Indians and others.
The Chinese have a very clear vision of what they want to do. The single biggest strategic goal of India’s foreign policy has been to keep Pakistan and China separate. What you have done is, you have brought them together: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in Lok Sabha
I think there were 3 fundamental things that were not spoken about in the Presidential Address. First, and what I consider to be the most important, is the idea that there are now two Indias. There is now no longer one India: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in Lok Sabha.
Rahul Gandhi said that India’s unemployment figure was at its highest in 50 years.
“You talk of Made in India, Start-Up India, but youth did not get the unemployment they were supposed to. The one they had has disappeared,” Rahul Gandhi said, adding that in 2021, 3 crore youth lost their jobs.
The Congress leader said that the rise in unemployment was result of a series of attacks on informal sector as well as medium and small enterprises.
“Jobs are created in the MSME and informal sectors. But you have snatched lakhs of crores of rupees from these sectors and given it to the rich. Back to back attacks on the MSME and informal sectors like note ban, wrong GST and lack of support during the Covid-19 pandemic. Today 84 per cent people have lost part of their wages and are heading towards poverty,” Rahul Gandhi said.
“The UPA government pulled 27 crore people out of poverty in 10 years. This is not our data, this is factual data. You pushed 23 crore people back into poverty,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi said that the government policies have ensured that ‘Made India’ cannot be successful any more.
“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 said.