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Journalism of Courage
RAISING THE political heat in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday brandished a remote control at a public meeting and claimed that while the Narendra Modi government uses it to give infrastructure contracts to industrialist Gautam Adani, the Congress uses it for the benefit of people in states where it is in power.
Rahul also reiterated the demand for a caste census, describing it as the “X-ray of India” to get the actual count of the backward classes, and accused Prime Minister Modi of deliberately not giving out the data.
Addressing a party event in Bilaspur, during which he launched the Bhupesh Baghel government’s ‘Gramin Awas Nyay Yojna’ aimed at providing financial assistance to the homeless and families with kutcha houses in rural areas, Rahul said that the BJP government at the Centre has not fulfilled its promise of depositing Rs 15 lakh in each bank account, but his party has delivered on its promises. The Congress government in Chhattisgarh kept the three big promises – loan waivers, slashing power bills and paddy procurement at Rs 2,500 per quintal – that it made, he said.
“In the next five years, the state government will give another Rs 9,500 crore in your account using our remote control. We promised a loan waiver for farmers, the halving of electricity bills, and Rs 2,500 per quintal on paddy. We fulfilled the promises soon after coming to power. Wherever we run the government, we run the people’s government. We made five promises in Karnataka and all five were fulfilled. We do not lie like they did with the Rs 15-lakh fake promise. Our sarkar is not Adani sarkar,” he said.
“Modi ji said Congress will not fulfill its promises. The reality is in front of you that we kept our promise. We gave Rs 21,000 crore to farmers as input subsidy under Kisan Nyay Yojna. The landless farmers got Rs 7,000 per year. Tribals got minimum support price on forest produce and the best implementation of forest rights act in India is done in Chhattisgarh,” he said. “About 70 lakh families benefited from the health services. About 380 English medium schools were opened and 42,000 vacancies were filled. Another 1.03 lakh youngsters got Rs 2,500 unemployment allowance.”
Targeting the Prime Minister, he said, “Our remote control is transparent and gives people benefits. On the other side, the BJP has a remote control where Modi ji secretly presses the button and Adani ji gets Mumbai airport, again press and Adani ji gets railway contract, again and he gets infra. Their remote is for privatizing public sector and giving your jal, jungle and zameen (water, forest, land) to Adani.”
He also said that despite multiple requests from the Chhattisgarh government, the central government has not released money to Chhattisgarh to make houses for 7 lakh poor people under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana but the Chhattisgarh government will pay for them.
The Congress leader also accused the Prime Minister of not letting the caste census happen. “Wherever Modi goes he talks about OBC. Congress had done a caste census with the government. Modi ji does not want to show this data to the public… Whenever I spoke of caste census, they used to turn away the camera in Lok Sabha,” he said.
“I got another data (related to caste). India’s government is not run by MLAs or MPs, but secretaries and cabinet secretaries. Whenever a policy is made, 90 secretaries in the central government design the policy and the money allocation. Out of these, how many come from backward communities? You will be shocked. Only 3 out of the 90 are from OBC,” he said.
“Caste census will have to be done… Caste census is X-ray of Hindustan. Entire country will know how many OBC, Dalit, Adivasi, women and general caste people are there. Why are you afraid of caste census? You must show the data to the people of India,” Rahul said.
