New Delhi: The Congress party vice president Rahul Gandhi continues to push arch-rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) onto the back foot with his newfound aggression and consistent attacks aimed at the BJP-led federal government.
After attempts to woo the farmers and poor, Gandhi is now trying to get into the good books of the middle class, which rejected his party outright in last year’s general elections.
Gandhi on Saturday met leaders of organisations representing home buyers of the National Capital Region at the party’s central office and promised them that he would use all his might to force amendments to the proposed Real Estate (Development and Regulation) Bill.
“I have assured them that the way I stand with farmers and tribal I stand with them also,” Gandhi told media after the meeting.
Earlier at the meeting, he told the home buyers that his party would mount pressure on the federal government to roll back some of the proposed amendments to the law the previous Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance government headed by Manmohan Singh had introduced a couple of years ago.
Addressing the meeting, Gandhi, 44, termed the Narendra Modi-led federal government as pro-builder and anti-middle class.
“This government is not just oppressing the farmers, adivasis (tribal) but also the middle class. They are told that you will get the flat on a particular day but for years they don’t get the flat. They are told the super-duper area of the flat would be so much but what is delivered is different,” Gandhi explained.
Gandhi has returned last month after a two-month sabbatical at an undisclosed destination abroad as a changed personality — aggressive and proactive contrary to his image of being a reluctant and reticent politician.
Gandhi has started what is being termed as his second tenure by first addressing a rally of farmers and farm workers in New Delhi where he termed the Modi government as anti-farmer over the Land Acquisition Bill. He later travelled to northern state Punjab and western state Maharashtra to interact with farmers who were hit badly by the recent unseasonal rains and hailstorm before turning his attention to the middle class who invest their life’s savings in fulfilling their dream of living in their own homes.
In between he lambasted the Modi government thrice in parliament in his speeches, breaking his dubious record of having spoken only thrice in parliament in one decade. Gandhi is serving his third consecutive term as a Member of Parliament and represents the family’s pocket borough Amethi seat of Uttar Pradesh.
The new Real Estate Bill allows builders to deposit only 50 per cent of the money collected from prospective home buyers in an escrow account as against 70 per cent stipulated by the previous Manmohan Singh government. The idea was to prevent the builders divert funds from one project to the other and in the process delaying construction and handing over process.
Unlike the previous Bill the new Bill allows builders to make minor alternations to the sanctioned plans without specifying what those minor alternations can be. Often home buyers complain that the open areas shown in the buyers agreement is converted to commercial uses like building schools or shops after completion of the project.
The new Bill also allegedly dilutes monetary penalty for late deliveries to the builders.
Modi government has earlier explained that the idea was to give incentive to the real estate sector which was facing cash crunch so that it can bounce back so that the government’s aim of providing or providing for every household a house of its own becomes a reality in the near future.
One of the provisions of the contentious Land Acquisition Bill is to acquire land from farmers for construction of concrete dwellings for the rural households. The government has plans to introduce the new Real Estate Bill in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.