Modi will also waive remaining loan of select industrialists: Rahul

Bhopal, November 16

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday claimed that after writing off loans worth Rs 3.5 lakh crore of select industrialists, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would now waive their remaining debts worth Rs 12 lakh crore.

Addressing a rally in Deori town in Sagar district of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, he also termed demonetisation as the “biggest ever scam” of the country.

“I met Modi ji and asked him about waiving farmers’ loans. But he did not speak a word... He wrote off loans worth Rs 3.5 lakh crore of select industrialists and will slowly waive their remaining loan to the tune of Rs 12 lakh crore,” Gandhi said.

“Modi let (Vijay) Mallya, Nirav (Modi), (Mehul) Choksi flee the country with public money, leaving the countrymen behind in bank queues (during demonetisation),” he said.

“But have you seen any big persons like Ambani in queues after demonetisation,” he asked.

On November 8, which marked the second anniversary of demonetisation, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Thursday had defended the note ban drive, saying “prophets of doom” have been proven wrong as hard data of two years shows an increase in tax base, greater formalisation of the economy and India retaining the fastest growing economy tag for the fifth year in a row.

Gandhi also targeted Modi over his promise of providing two crore jobs, saying despite programmes like ‘Make in India’ and ‘Startup India’, the NDA government was able to provide only 450 jobs in 24 hours, whereas China created 50,000 jobs in the same time.

The Congress chief also accused the prime minister of not talking about (eradicating) corruption any more.

“Narendra Modi used to talk about corruption earlier but not so these days. He used to talk about 56-inch (chest) and would request people to make him chowkidar (watchman) to check corruption.

“But, he is not taking about (eradicating) corruption these days,” Gandhi said.

He also accused the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led Madhya Pradesh Government of ruining the healthcare and education systems in the state by handing them over to the rich people.

Calling Vyapam as the “scam of the century”, he alleged that the entire state knew that Chouhan and his family were involved in the irregularities.

Gandhi promised to waive farm loans within 10 days of coming to power in Madhya Pradesh just like his party-led governments did in Punjab and Karnataka.

If the chief minister of the Congress government fails to waive farm loans within 10 days, the party would change the chief minister, he added.

Gandhi also promised to set up food processing units near the farm lands so that farmers get good price for their produce and for employment generation.

While addressing another rally at Seoni, he said, black money was converted into white through back-door channels post-demonetisation, which he described as the “biggest scam of independent India”.

“If the aim was to eradicate black money through note ban, why didn’t you find any black marketeer or rich person in the queue outside banks. These people went inside the banks through backdoor and converted their black money into white.”

“Farmers, labourers, ordinary citizens were in the bank queues and women had to lose their life-long savings kept at home,” he said.

He said people made Modi the chowkidar in 2014, but instead of doing chowkidari of farmers, workers, poor, small and medium businesses, he became a chowkidar of handful of rich.

When people hear the promises made in 2014, they laugh, Gandhi claimed.

“The UPA’s flagship scheme MNERGA’s total budget was Rs 35,000 crore which gave employment to poor in rural areas,” he said.

“More than 10 per cent of this amount was taken away from you and given to few rich people,” he alleged.

Gandhi said unemployment had doubled in Madhya Pradesh in the last 15 years of the BJP rule.

“The education system has been destroyed due to the Vyapam scam which has seen 50 deaths,” he said.

On the Rafale deal, he said, “UPA’s deal was to get the aircraft manufactured in India by HAL, wherein youth would get employment. However, Modi scrapped the deal and decided to purchase 36 aircraft from France and gave the contract to Anil Ambani, who is under Rs 45,000 crore debt.” — PTI