PM Modi policies based on TRPs, all cash not black money: Rahul Gandhi

In a two-pronged attack, Rahul criticised the Centre’s demonetisation decision and its Pakistan policy. “The Congress never gave India a Prime Minister who was a prisoner of his own image. We never gave India a Prime Minister who was ready to inflict such tremendous suffering on the people to protect his own persona. We never gave India a Prime Minister who based his entire policy-making strategy on TRPs. We never gave India a Prime Minister who bypassed the experience of those sitting in the institutions. The country has suffered tremendous damage as a result of the vanity and incompetence of our PM,” he said.

He said Modi had “confused” India’s entire cash economy with black economy, demonetised 86 per cent of currency notes and decided to experiment with the financial future of 1.3 billion people. “All cash is not black money and all black money is not cash,” he said. “Instead of attacking black money, he attacked the very foundations of our economy,” he said.

Stating that the demonetisation exercise was a “catastrophic”, “badly conceived and incompetently implemented experiment”, Rahul said the Prime Minister single-handedly decided to declare war on the world’s fastest growing economy.

While the chief economic advisor was not informed, the outgoing RBI Governor’s warning was also not heeded, he said.

“The result of this catastrophic experiment will soon be revealed to the entire world…Every economist of any repute has already condemned it and questioned its capacity to realise the goals it is supposed to achieve… Modiji has created a massive new corrupt black market that is working overtime to convert the black money to white… It is clear that our GDP growth will be devastated. India’s poor have been landed a body blow… The poor stand in line while the corrupt are being given a free bypass through the new Income Tax law,” he said.

Rahul said if Modi had attended Parliament and listened to the views of MPs, he would not have made the “catastrophic policy mistakes” that he is currently making. “Listening to the voices of the people of this country is the only thing that can free him from the clutches of his own image and make him an effective Prime Minister, yet he consistently refuses to do so,” he said.

Targeting the NDA government’s Pakistan policy, he said: “Our Pakistan policy resulted in the complete global isolation of Pakistan and brought peace in Kashmir. By the time the Congress left government in 2014, 50 plane loads of tourists were landing in Srinagar airport every day.”

“Today the same person who used to ridicule us sits silently while Kashmir burns. Narendra Modi will be judged by history as the man who gifted massive political space to anti-India forces by creating an opportunistic political alliance between the BJP and PDP. He has created the political vacuum that gives the terrorists space to operate,” he said.

Referring to the surgical strikes, he said policy cannot be based on “ad hoc responses” to events, adding that it is time for the government to develop a coherent strategy. “We were told that the idea behind the strikes was to stop Pakistan from cross-border attacks. There have been 21 major attacks and hundreds of ceasefire violations since the strikes,” he said.

“Eighty-five soldiers have been martyred. That is the highest number of men we have lost in almost a decade,” said Rahul. “Are these young men just statistics destined to gather dust in the records of the Government of India? Does the government not owe them an apology? The government has got itself into a complete mess with regard to Pakistan. Their policy on Pakistan is a complete failure. Why must the people of India suffer long speeches and irresponsible statements while militants supported by Pakistan walk into our army bases and kill our jawans at will,” he said.

Earlier in the meeting, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram briefed party MPs on the government’s demonetisation decision.

Rahul himself incompetent, arrogant: BJP

The BJP Friday said that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s observations about PM Narendra Modi could be attributed to Rahul himself as he has been “doing photo-op politics” and had even rejected his government’s decisions in the past. “Rahul Gandhi himself suffers from arrogance and incompetence. Had he been not incapable, the UPA government would not have suffered from policy paralysis, committed scams worth Rs 12 lakh crore and brought India a bad name. He is the biggest symbol of non-serious and negative politics in the country,” BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said in a statement. He said Rahul is bitter about successive Congress defeats and is targeting Modi and his government with a disinformation campaign born out of “politics of hate”. Sharma said Gandhi is out on bail in a corruption case of Rs 5,000 crore, a reference to the National Herald case.