Rahul Gandhi led the Congress's attack on the government on price rise in parliament today.
Highlights
- Rahul Gandhi attacks government with speech in parliament
- He focuses on inflation, rising prices of vegetables and pulses
- Prices of pulses rising by 20% every month for last year
Rahul Gandhi led his party's attack on the government in parliament today, accusing it of insensitivity to the impact of inflation on the common man.
"All across villages, a plaintive new slogan is ringing out-
Arhar Modi" - the 46-year-old said, in a moniker linking Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a lentil.
Reciting a list of prices that pulses and vegetables are retailing at, Mr Gandhi, who frequently referred to notes during his speech, said the crisis caused by a shortage of lentils is based in corruption and the government has done little to stop leakage by middlemen and others.
Mr Gandhi chided the PM for failing to safeguard the interests of the poor. "You said you wanted to be the people's
chowkidaar," he said. "It has been left to the Congress to serve as
chowkidaar," he alleged, citing the PM's attempts to "snatch" farmers' land with a controversial proposal on acquiring farming land for industry that was shelved by the government after wide political opposition.
"Any form of bluster is no substitute for statistics. It is not a question of slogans but statistics... Inflation was in double digits for 18 months during the UPA regime," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley hit back at Mr Gandhi.
Pulses are a top component of India's spiraling inflation. Prices of lentils have risen by nearly 20 percent every month for the last year, according to some reports. The government has raised imports and placed buffer stock on the market to help consumers. But the main problem is that India produces a miniscule amount of pulses compared to most other countries
Despite a succession of electoral setbacks in states like Kerala and Assam, the Congress has been clamouring for Mr Gandhi to take over the party from his mother, Sonia, who is its president. Mr Gandhi's elevation is not up for debate - the party, famous for its unconditional allegiance to its First Family, has repeatedly said it is upto him to decide when to avail of it.
Recently, Mr Gandhi has exhibited punchier riposte than he was known for, encouraging his party to claim that he is a more confident and intuitive politician than before.
Playing on the heavily-monogrammed suit that PM Modi infamously wore for a meeting with President Obama, Mr Gandhi coined the term "suit-boot government" to accuse the ruling BJP of favouring the interests of rich industrialists over the country's poor. In March, he mocked a scheme to encourage tax defaulters to disclose hidden wealth as "Fair and Lovely", alleging that like the skin-lightening cream, the policy made undeliverable promises to turn black money into white.