New Delhi: Launching a direct attack on the Narendra Modi government, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Monday said that a “chakravyuh” of fear was prevailing in the country and the sole aim of the Union Budget was to strengthen the framework of monopoly capital, political monopoly and the Deep State.
He said that when the INDIA bloc comes into power, it will bring a motion for a caste census in the country and set a legal basis for MSP for the farmers. Mr Gandhi said that the middle class, which listened to Prime Minister Modi, has been stabbed in the Budget with an increase in short-term and long-term capital gains tax and the removal of indexation benefit in real estate deals.
“When during the Covid-19 pandemic the Prime Minister asked the middle class to bang plates, they banged it. It looked strange but they did it. The PM asked them to switch on mobile lights and they did. But in this Budget, you have stabbed the same middle class in the back with one knife and in the chest with another,” he said, while participating in the debate on the Union Budget. Mr Gandhi said that there is a hidden advantage for the INDIA bloc in this as “the middle class is going to leave you and come to this side”.
Mr Gandhi said that thousands of years ago in Haryana’s Kurukshetra, six people killed a youth, Abhimanyu, in a “chakravyuh” and a “chakravyuh” has violence and fear. “There is an atmosphere of fear and that fear has pervaded every aspect of our country. In the BJP, only one man is allowed to dream to be the Prime Minister. If the defence minister wants to be PM, there is a big problem, there is fear. This fear has been spread throughout the country… Why is it that my friends in the BJP are terrified, ministers are terrified, farmers and workers are terrified?” the Congress leader added.
He said the “chakravyuh” was also called a “padmavyuh” for its resemblance to a lotus (BJP’s election symbol) formation. “In the 21st century, another ‘chakravyuh’ has been prepared. It is in the form of lotus. What was done with Abhinmanyu is being done with India, with its youth, women, farmers and small and medium businesses,” he said.
Today also, Mr Gandhi said, there were six people at the centre of the “chakravyuh”, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah. Mr Gandhi mentioned the name of four more people, but Speaker Om Birla disallowed it, saying that they were not members of the House and hence cannot be named. “The ‘chakravyuh’ that has captured India has three forces behind it: first is the idea of monopoly capital -- that two people should be allowed to own India’s entire wealth... The second element is institutions and agencies -- CBI, ED, income-tax department of this nation; and the third is the political executive,” Mr Gandhi said.
These three together are at the heart of the “chakravyuh”, and they have devastated this country, he said.
“My expectation was that this Budget would weaken the power of this ‘chakravyuh’. It would help the farmers of the country, the youth labourers, and small businesses of the country. But what I have seen is that the sole aim of this Budget was to strengthen this framework of monopoly business, framework of political monopoly that destroys the democratic structure, and the framework of the Deep State or the agencies,” he said.
The first thing this “chakravyuh” did was to attack the small and medium businesses that used to give jobs to crores, he said, adding that this was done through demonetisation and tax terrorism. “The finance minister talked about the internship programme in the Budget. This is a joke, because you said that the internship programme will be in the top 500 companies of the country… 99 per cent of the youth have nothing to do with this programme,” he said.
“This means that first you broke their leg and then you are applying a bandage,” Mr Gandhi said, while attacking the government. The truth is that the government created a maze of unemployment and paper leaks, he alleged. “Paper leak is the biggest issue for the youth today, but it was not discussed in the Budget. On the contrary, you have reduced the budget for education. You created a ‘chakravyuh’ of unemployment and paper leak,” Mr Gandhi said.
“You call yourself nationalists but when you have to help jawans, you do not give money for pensions. You trapped the youth in the ‘chakravyuh’ of Agniveer,” he said.
“You create ‘chakravyuhs’ and we will break them,” he said, and asserted that the best way to break “chakravyuhs” was through the caste census.
Mr Gandhi also displayed a photo of the halwa ceremony that precedes the printing of the Budget, saying there was no Dalit, adivasi or backward class person in the photo. Mr Gandhi said 20 officers worked on preparing the country’s Budget, and of them only one was from the minority community and one from the OBC category. However, he said that these two officers were missing in the photograph of the halwa ceremony.
“The ‘padmavyuh’ people think that the youth and backward class people are Abhimanyu, but they should know that they are not Abhimanyu but are Arjun and will break the ‘chakravyuh’,” he said. “The INDIA bloc has taken the first step and we have destroyed the confidence of the PM. He is not coming for our speeches. I tell you in advance he will not come for my speeches. The ‘padmavyuh’ people do not know that India's nature is not of violence and ‘chakravyuh’,” Mr Gandhi said.
Referring to Lord Shiva's wedding procession, Mr Gandhi said anyone can join it and in all religions people are welcomed in religious places, but in the government's “chakravyuh” there are only six people. “The fight is between ‘Shiva ki baraat’ and ‘chakravyuh’. We break chakravyuhs -- Independence,Constitution, Green Revolution, MGNREGS are all examples of it,” he said.
“Chakravyuh cannot defeat ‘Shiva’s baraat’. You call yourself Hindu, you do not understand Hinduism,” he said, attacking the BJP further.
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