NEW DELHI: Countering allegations that he is against big businesses, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi asserted on Thursday that he is not “anti-business’, but “anti-monopoly” and “anti creating oligopolies”.
In an X post, the Congress MP said, “I want to make something absolutely clear, I have been projected by my opponents in the BJP to be anti-business. I am not anti-business in the least. I am anti-monopoly, I am anti creating oligopolies, I am anti-domination of business by one or two or five people.”
Gandhi further said that he started his career as a management consultant. “I understand the type of things that are required for a business to succeed. So I just want to repeat, I am not anti-business, I am anti-monopoly,” he said, “I am pro-jobs, pro-business, pro-innovation, pro-competition. I am anti-monopoly.”
“Our economy will thrive when there is free and fair space for all businesses,” he asserted.
The LoP’s remarks came a day after he wrote an opinion piece, in which he argued that the original East India Company wound up its operations more than 150 years ago but the raw fear it used to generate then is back now, with a new breed of monopolists having taken its place. He, however, had also asserted that a “new deal for progressive Indian business is an idea whose time has come”.
In another post on X, Gandhi said, “After my article, many play-fair businesses are telling me that a senior minister has been calling and forcing them to say good things on social media about PM Modi and the government’s programmes. Proves my point exactly!”
Gandhi’s article said India was silenced by the East India Company and it was silenced not by the company’s business prowess, but by its chokehold. The company choked India by partnering with, bribing and threatening more pliant maharajas and nawabs, he said.