BHOPAL: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday took a sharp swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of surrendering to US pressure during the recent conflict with Pakistan.
Speaking at a Madhya Pradesh Congress convention in Bhopal, Gandhi referred to Modi as “Narendra Surrender” and claimed that the ceasefire between India and Pakistan happened only after a call from former US President Donald Trump. “I know the BJP-RSS people very well, just put them under a wee bit pressure, push them and they will run away out of fear. Trump dialed Modiji and said Modiji what are you doing. Narendra Surrender is what Trump said and Modiji readily abided by what Trump asked for, saying Ji Huzoor,” Gandhi said, taking a jibe at the Prime Minister.
He also referred to history, comparing Modi’s response to that of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. “There was no phone call at that time, the US sent its seventh fleet led by an aircraft carrier and weapons. But Indira Gandhi stood firm and said she would do whatever she had to. This is the difference between them (RSS and BJP) and us (Congress). Congress party never surrenders, right since Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel, we are the people who don’t surrender, but fight against the superpower,” Gandhi said.
BJP announced caste sensus under pressure: Rahul Gandhi
The Congress leader also spoke on the caste census and social justice, saying the Modi government announced it only under pressure. He claimed the government did not have genuine intentions to implement the caste census, just as it delayed the implementation of the women’s reservation bill.
“The Modi government has announced a caste census under pressure, but they actually don’t intend to do, instead they will do what they did on the women reservation issue. They want a country in which everything is concentrated in a few hands and don’t want social justice in the country,” he said.
Gandhi said that caste enumeration should follow the Telangana model and not the Bihar model. He criticised the Bihar approach where census questions were framed by a few bureaucrats behind closed doors and executed through self-reporting.
“In the Bihar model, the questions of the census were framed by select bureaucrats in a closed room... On the contrary, in Telangana, the questions of the caste census were framed based on inputs from 3.5 lakh people,” Gandhi said. He added that officials in Telangana visited every household and recorded responses personally, which led to more accurate and revealing results.
According to him, the Telangana caste census found that no one from SC, ST or OBC backgrounds held top positions in the corporate sector and that government contracts were mostly awarded to just 5% of the population, excluding the weaker and deprived sections.
He further said that around 90% of India’s population consists of Dalits, OBCs, tribals and minorities, yet they are not part of the country’s development process. “Two India’s are being created,” he said, “one comprising 90% of the population which work as labourers, food delivery workers and cab drivers and the other comprising 5-10% in whose hands the entire wealth is concentrated.”
Gandhi concluded that a genuine caste census based on the Telangana model is the only way forward. “Whenever the caste census is conducted in the country, it will have to be based on the Telangana model, whether it’s done by Modi or the Congress,” he said.
