Congress kicked off its campaign for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state Gujarat. At the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting in Gandhinagar on Tuesday, party president Rahul Gandhi targeted PM Modi for his performance over the past five years.
In reference to the Rafale deal, Rahul Gandhi once again alleged PM Modi had given Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani.
"PM Modi praises the Indian Air Force. But he does not tell the nation that he took Rs 30,000 crore from the pilots of IAF and handed it over to Anil Ambani. Under UPA regime, Manmohan Singh ji had decided to pay Rs 526 crore for one Rafale jet and the contract would build them would go to HAL. The rates were revised in the current regime to Rs 1,600 crore for one aircraft," Gandhi said.
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He took a further dig at Modi, saying: "The PM calls Nirav Modi 'Nirav Bhai', Mehul Choksi 'Mehul Bhai', Anil Ambani 'Anil Bhai'," Rahul Gandhi said while targeting PM Modi.
"Narendra Modi ji went ahead with demonetisation without consulting anybody. This broke the entreprenuerial spirit, the small and medium businesses of Gujarat, which are the backbone of the state. This took away jobs from crores of people. This was said to be a fight against black money. Did you see the black money holders of India queuing outside banks," Rahul Gandhi asked while addressing the rally.
The Congress president also criticised the government for creating a complicated structure of the Goods and Services Tax. "It was promised that there will be only one tax. But at the time of implementation, there were five slabs. To this date, the small and medium businesses have not been able to understand GST," he said.
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Gandhi promised that the Congress will reform the GST structure and cut the number of tax slabs to one if it comes to power in 2019 General Elections.
Rahul Gandhi also targeted the Modi government for its failure to create as many jobs as it promised before assuming power at the Centre. "Narendra Modi ji does not want to tell the nation that he has created enough jobs in the past five years. He does not want to tell the farmers that he has not listened to them, waived their loans, or helped them," Gandhi said.