PM Narendra Modi blames Congress, AAP for exacerbating Covid crisis

Congress the leader of 'tukde, tukde gang', believes in divide and rule: Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched a frontal attack on the Congress and warned it that the party’s negativism would lead it to run politically aground, causing its ultimate decimation.

For the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, the Prime Minister reviewed the exodus of those who lost jobs and had to return home from cities. He held the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) responsible for the situation that caused migration to villages, which led to the spread of Covid-19 in rural India. “The Opposition did not do anything positive, like asking people to take Covid precautions...You people pushed labourers into difficulties,” Modi said, replying to a debate in the Lok Sabha on the Motion of Thanks to President Ram Nath Kovind's address to Parliament.

“The Congress crossed the limit,” he said. “During the first wave, when we had lockdown, when the WHO was advising that 'stay wherever you are'... the Congress, at the Mumbai railway station, gave tickets to labourers to go and spread coronavirus," he said, adding that the government in Delhi told people to return home because they were a potential Covid risk. “The responsible thing to do would have been to advise people to wear masks, wash hands and maintain social distancing. Instead, all the Congress did was create conditions to push people away.”

The Prime Minister said his government, instead, played a positive role that had been appreciated the world over. “During Covid, the Indian economy was the fastest growing in the world. Farmers produced record quantities of foodgrains… Lot of countries faced food shortages, but this country didn't let anyone die of hunger. India gave free ration to over 800 million people and is still giving," he said.

Modi was likely responding to the impassioned speech of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who opened the debate on the Motion of Thanks and criticised the National Democratic Alliance for undermining federalism in India. Responding to this, the Prime Minister attacked the Congress’s thinking and its leaders, including India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru, for not accepting responsibility in economic management but blaming global forces for it. In the process, he unveiled the BJP’s own thinking in the current economic context – that while atmanirbharata was going to be the government’s creed, the country needed to accept that the government would not be able to do everything on its own and must restrict itself to letting individual private sector talent emerge and flower.

The PM said the management of India’s economy – especially handling the problem of inflation and price rise – had been exemplary during his tenure. “Congress' P Chidambaram is writing articles on economy in the newspapers these days. In 2012, he said that the public is not troubled when they've to spend Rs 15 on a water bottle and Rs 20 on ice-cream, but the public can't tolerate Rs 1 increase in prices of wheat and rice. These were the kind of statements made by leaders then," he said, adding that inflation was in "double digits" during the Congress rule, but under the current government, it "never rose above 5 percent" from 2014 to 2020. The low inflation rate was maintained despite global challenges, he added. 

He said India had seen unprecedented FPI (foreign portfolio investor) flows because conditions for investment were seen as positive. Laws that investors saw as deterrent to growth had been scrapped by his government and more would follow, he said. International prices for chemical fertilisers might have gone up but the Indian farmer had been protected from the price rise.

India’s young entrepreneurs had done the country proud. The number of start-ups had gone up from double digits seven years ago to 60,000, and that the country had a large number of unicorns and soon India would lead the world in this aspect , he said.

He also took a swipe at the Shiromani Akali Dal, an erstwhile partner, without naming the party, when he said big farmers had held up agri reforms because they felt threatened by them. “But I want to ask them,” he said, “why do you hate the small farmer so much?”

He said the Congress was intent on returning India to antediluvian thought that only considered its own vested political interest. "Divide and rule has been the Congress's policy, that is why it has become the leader of 'tukde, tukde gang'…The Congress has lost the appetite for power but believes in the policy of sowing seeds that will strengthen separatist forces," the PM said.

"In 1988, the people of Nagaland voted for the Congress last. Odisha voted for you last in 1995 -- it has been 27 years. In 1994, you won majority in Goa single-handedly, but Goa hasn't accepted you since. In 1988, Tripura, 34 years ago, you got the mandate. In 1985, it was the turn of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat. In West Bengal, they voted for you last in 1972," Modi said. "The question is not about elections, it is about intentions. Despite being in power for 50 years, why are the people of the country repeatedly rejecting you? It is because of arrogance and ego,” he said.