HAVERI: Holding the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) indirectly responsible for the Pulwama terror attack, AICC president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said that if the earlier BJP government had not set the Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Moulana Masood Azhar free, such an incident could have been averted.
Addressing the Congress’ Parivartan rally here, Rahul targeted the BJP’s policies against terrorism citing the Vajpayee government’s decision to release Masood Azhar in exchange for passengers of the hijacked Air India flight IC814. He challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reveal to the people who actually carried out the Pulwama terror attack and who set free the person responsible for the attack.
RaGa says Cong will not surrender to extremist elements
“People should understand who is actually responsible for the terror attack — was it Masood Azhar or the BJP?” he remarked. He said the Congress will never surrender before such extremist elements. Criticising the China policy of the NDA government, Rahul Gandhi said while the PM was swinging with the Chinese president, the Chinese security personnel were occupying territory at Doklam. “The entire world knew about it, but Modi was unaware. While this issue was at the peak, the Indian premier went to meet the Chinese president without any agenda,” Rahul criticised.
In a speech, Rahul took the names of industrialists Anil Ambani and Gautam Adani over 30 times and, at regular intervals, mentioned Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi while bashing Modi. Rahul charged that Modi ensured the Rafale offset deal went to Ambani, whose company had no experience in manufacturing fighter jets while denying it to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
“Five years ago, whenever Modi said ‘Achche Din’, people used to say ‘Aanewale hain’. But now the same people are saying ‘Chowkidar chor hain’,” he added.“Modi has criticised the Rs 11,000 crore farm loan waiver of the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka as a lollypop, but his PM Krishi Sammana Nidhi ensures only just Rs 3.5 per day for marginal farmers,” he added. However, the loan waiver announced by the coalition government is Rs 42,000 crore and money under the PMKSN works out to about Rs 16.5 per day.
Rahul meets intellectuals
After addressing the Parivartana rally, Rahul Gandhi had a closed-door interaction with intellectuals where they expressed concern about the eroding value of politics and said democracy was in danger. They said the internal security of the country was as important as border security. But of late a section of the society was feeling insecure, they told him. Writers Rajendra Chenni, Ganesh Devi, Mudnakud Chinnaswamy and were among those present.