The thing about Congress is that its workers truly believe Rahul Gandhi is intelligent and a force to be reckoned with. They genuinely think he is Prime Minister material. They also think that every time he ‘attacks’ the BJP with these buzzwords, he is ‘scaring’ PM Modi. Here are some of the recent social media posts from Congress’ official handle:
MODANI pic.twitter.com/3D3KDk3yz3
— Congress (@INCIndia) February 14, 2023
Earlier today morning, Congress shared a digitally modified image where the faces of PM Modi and Gautam Adani were merged with the caption ‘MODANI’, a wordplay of Modi + Adani.
मैं और मेरी परछाई pic.twitter.com/WDwSSS18zc
— Congress (@INCIndia) February 13, 2023
On Monday, February 13, Congress tweeted an image of PM Modi with a shadow that resembles a silhouette of Gautam Adani.
सही बात है… pic.twitter.com/Z9cLiU5nHU
— Congress (@INCIndia) February 12, 2023
A post on Sunday showed a picture of PM Modi with Gautam Adani which insinuates government may be bending rules for Adani.
There are other such tweets along similar lines casting aspersions between the corporate giant and Prime Minister. During the recent Budget session in the Parliament, Congress leaders, along with other opposition leaders, were demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Adani-Hindenburg controversy. During the Prime Minister’s reply to the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address, Congress leaders created a ruckus. During Lok Sabha proceedings, Congress first staged a walkout before returning to create a ruckus, while during the entire 1 hour 30 minute address in Rajya Sabha, the elected public representatives continued to heckle the Prime Minister on the Adani issue.
Except, there is nothing new in this. Let’s go down memory lane a little, back to the 2019 general elections.
The Accidental Chowkidar: Chori chori, Chupke Chupke
— Congress (@INCIndia) February 14, 2019
❤🤗 #LoveNotHate pic.twitter.com/yRKrjaI676
Congress was making memes, caricatures on the Rafale deal, and insinuating kickbacks from Anil Ambani’s Reliance. Congress leaders cried themselves hoarse that the Modi govt ‘took away the contract’ from HAL and ‘gave it to Ambani’. Except it was not true. The 36 jets that India purchased from France, will be 100% manufactured in France. India bought them off the shelf. Not a single one of them was being built in India so the question of HAL or Reliance manufacturing them would not arise. If India decides to buy any more Rafale fighters, they may be made in India in the future, but that will be under a separate agreement.
People of India have given a clear mandate to ‘chowkidar’ we will not stand for corruption & crony capitalism.
— Congress (@INCIndia) December 12, 2018
We demand a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigate #RafaleScam. Please sign this petition to bring back transparency#SignToProbeRafaleScamhttps://t.co/UCyVlse9a0 pic.twitter.com/4HnUccg8ih
The Joint Parliamentary Committee was demanded back then as well. They continued to do so till 2021, then quite likely gave up after realizing they only sound stupider with every passing day. The JPC is now demanded in Adani’s case as well. It is like clockwork. A set pattern.
Find a business house as a target (Ambani, Adani), then accuse the PM of being ‘close’ to them, bring in ‘crony capitalism’, create a ruckus in Parliament, demand JPC, and fight elections on agenda that ‘businessmen are rich and hence, by default evil’. In a country where the middle class and poor form the majority of the population, it is easy to paint the ‘rich men’ as evil. Because the great Jawaharlal Nehru, Rahul Gandhi’s great-grandfather, had said that ‘profit is a dirty word’.
Indians are hardwired, thanks to our school education prepared by Leftist academics, to have socialist views where privileged and rich people must be made to feel guilty for being so. That ‘profit is evil’ is so deeply entrenched that even if someone makes money with hard work and perseverance, he would be looked at with suspicion of ‘must have exploited the poor’. We have been trained to think that profit is the same as profiteering and hence Congress gets away with it. This, despite their own party leaders coming from extremely privileged backgrounds, owning assets worth thousands of crores by just being politicians.
Nehru followed the Soviet model of economic policies where the state ran businesses such as industries to hotels. Taxes were kept high to ensure that regular citizens had minimal wealth and were dependent on the state. The spirit of entrepreneurship was discouraged. Nehru, as PM made some devastating decisions. JRD Tata, the longest-serving chairman of Tata Group founded India’s first international Airline in 1932. One of the biggest blunders in economic policy decision-making Nehru did was to nationalize the Tata owned Air India.
“I have often thought that if fate had decreed that Vallabhbhai Patel instead of Jawaharlal, would he be the younger of the two, India would have followed a very different path and would be in better economic shape than it is today”, JRD Tata said in a rare interview in the 80s. He believed that Jawaharlal Nehru knew very little about economics and socialism and he was simply not even open to ideas. “Socialism could be established without the loss of the economic freedom of the majority of the people, but Jawahar was not even interested in listening,” he had said.
Nehru, in his self-image, wanted to be seen among artists, intellectuals, and such while giving cold shoulder to even Tata (even though his party continued to receive patronship from rich industrial houses and families) while Modi is someone who doesn’t think being seen with businessmen is some crime. Modi would smile and hug a businessman as much as he would smile and pose for a selfie pic with actors.
For a country like India, it has to be a mixture of government-controlled enterprises plus private players who work in tandem to strengthen our economy. India, with a population of 1.4 billion, cannot rely only on government jobs. Private companies and also public-private partnerships can only lead to a healthy and sustainable economy. The government will need to create a cohesive environment for private companies and startups to thrive so that they can also become job creators. Such kind of constant and mindless attacks on corporates only hinders our progress.
This is why it appears like Congress will make Adani-Hindenburg controversy their main issue during the election campaign for 2024, much like the Rafale controversy in 2019. And if things go as they went in 2019, this will likely fail as well and Modi will return to power again. The Nehruvian mindset of socialism has to end and pave way for the Modi model of governance.
