New Delhi: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Friday lashed out at Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi over demonetisation accusing him of being a prisoner of his own image and inflicting sufferings on the common man.
“Congress never gave India a Prime Minister who was a prisoner of his own image. We never gave India a PM who based his entire policy-making strategy on TRPs. We never gave India a PM 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,” Gandhi said at the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) meet.
Addressing the CPP meeting in the absence of his mother Sonia Gandhi, who is indisposed, he said the PM took the demonetisation decision without thinking of the repercussions.
“The concentration of power in the hands of one individual is not good but dangerous for the country. The chaos due to the Prime Minister’s decision of demonetisation is a direct result of this concentration of power. The demonetisation decision has hurt the economy in unimaginable ways, besides hitting fishermen in coastal areas, farmers in northern India, labourers, artisans and daily wage earners,” he said.
On November eight, Modi had announced that Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes were being withdrawn from circulation to combat black money and corruption. They have been replaced with new high-denomination notes for Rs500 and Rs2,000.
Gandhi said the Congress party would support any genuine move to fight corruption.
“If Narendra Modi listened to the views of democratically-elected members, it could potentially prevent him from making the catastrophic policy mistakes 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 averred.
Gandhi said Modi confused India’s entire cash economy with black economy.
“Every economist of repute has already condemned it and questioned its capacity to realise the goals it is supposed to achieve. Modi has created a massive new corrupt black market that is working overtime to convert the black money to white. All cash is not black money and all black money is not cash,” he stated.
He also accused Modi of sitting silently when Kashmir was burning.
“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 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and People’s Democratic Party in Kashmir. He has created the political vacuum that gives the terrorists space to operate,” Gandhi said.
Reacting to Gandhi’s comments against Modi, the ruling BJP said they reeked of frustration and incompetence.
“Rahul Gandhi before commenting on the competence of the Prime Minister should rather introspect about his own competence. I would say that it is the frustration of incompetence of Rahul Gandhi that he is making such kind of unfounded utterances,” BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra told the media.
