Congress President Rahul Gandhi lies. And he has no qualms about it. After the presentation of the interim budget earlier today, Congress President took to Twitter in an attempt to mock assured income support promised to the farmers.
Dear NoMo,
5 years of your incompetence and arrogance has destroyed the lives of our farmers.
Giving them Rs. 17 a day is an insult to everything they stand and work for. #AakhriJumlaBudget
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) February 1, 2019
Rahul Gandhi claimed that Rs 17 per day to farmers as assured income support is ‘an insult’ to farmers. With Rs 6,000 a year, for farmers with less than 2 hectares land, this amount will provide support for the procurement of inputs. This would be over and above the other subsidies, they may already be getting. So effectively, the actual benefit to the 12 crore small farmers may be much more than Rs 17.
Later, while addressing media, he said that PM Modi could ‘waive off’ Rs 3.5 lakh crore loan of 15 people but give only Rs 17 per day to farmers.
Rahul Gandhi: You can waive off Rs 3.5 Lakh Crore loan of 15 people but give only Rs 17 per day to farmers! What else is this, if not an insult? Election will be fought keeping in mind issue of farmers, unemployment & attacks on institutions, it’ll also be on the issue of Rafale. pic.twitter.com/eKQgPyzaC0
— ANI (@ANI) February 1, 2019
This is a lie on multiple accounts. First of all, no loans of ’15 people’ or any industrialists were ‘waived off’. The bad loans were written off. There is a difference between loan waiver and loan write off. Not just that. Rahul Gandhi cannot even stick to one figure of the loan ‘waived off’. It has gone from 1.1 lakh crore to 3.5 lakh crore in a span of less than 2 years. As usual, he provides no data to back his claims.
But seems like Rahul Gandhi is taking lessons in the economy from the farmer of the family, his brother in law Robert Vadra. In 2011, Congress-led UPA government had said that if you spend Rs 32 a day you can’t be poor. The Planning Commission had then told the Supreme Court that anyone spending Rs 26 a day in villages and Rs 32 a day in the city is not poor.
Read also: What will it take for Congress to be described as an elitist and casteist organization?
But mocking the poor is not the only thing Congress and its leaders are good at. In 2013, displaying the elitist nature that is inherent in Congress leaders, Congress leader Raj Babbar had said that poverty had come down even though prices had gone up. To justify his statement, he had said that in Mumbai he could get a ‘full meal’ for Rs 12. This combined with the various elitist comments where Congress leaders have mocked Prime Minister Modi’s humble beginnings as a tea-seller, talks a lot about Congress’ culture. No wonder Indira Gandhi’s ‘Garibi Hatao’ continues to be Congress’ slogan even after 40 years.
Moreover, Congress President accusing anyone else of insulting farmers is a bit rich considering newly formed Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have not been having a good time keeping promises to farmers. From speculations of loan waiver scams in both, Madhya Pradesh as well as Rajasthan, where non-existent names were found in the list of beneficiaries to waiving off as little as Rs 13 against a loan of Rs 24,000, Congress has done nothing but mock farmers. Despite the tall promises of loan waiver, the farmers in Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka continue to commit suicide because of debt burden.
Rahul Gandhi has developed a habit to mouth-off platitudes which in reality, mean paltry little. He lies, he obfuscates and confuses and hopes something, anything would stick and earn him brownie points. And as we get closer to 2019, the malaise would just get deeper.
