Modi govt. is obsessed with power: Rahul Gandhi

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Monday lashed out at the Modi government, saying democracy was going through “one of its darkest hours” with the ruling dispensation “obsessed with power and seeking to silence” all those who disagree.

Mr. Gandhi, presiding over the Congress Working Committee meeting, accused the government of “hiding behind the cloak of national security” and intimidating civil society “for asking questions.”

Referring to the one-day ban on Hindi channel NDTV India, Mr. Gandhi was scathing: “TV channels are being punished and asked to shut down. The opposition is being arrested for holding the government to account.”

All attempts by the government to suppress fundamental freedoms by “abusing” state power will only strengthen the Congress’s resolve to defeat such “dangerous designs,” he said, stressing, “Democracy under the present dispensation is going through one of the darkest hours.” Since “asking questions is what discomforts this government the most, for they have no answers,” Mr. Gandhi exhorted his party colleagues to use every forum, including Parliament, to “expose the government’s failures.”

Mr. Gandhi, who has raised the OROP issue several times in the recent past, said, “In recent months, our jawans have suffered the highest casualties in decades. They are being cruelly rewarded by a callous government with denial of OROP and cut in disability pension.”

He also warned his colleagues that “with State elections due in the coming months … we can safely expect the Modi government to launch a campaign of disinformation and polarisation. They will exploit caste and religious fault lines. We must anticipate and neutralise such devious strategies.”

Saying that the Congress had “successfully exposed” the Modi government’s “anti-poor agenda and broken promises,” Mr. Gandhi said the “struggle to expose the comprehensive failure of the Modi government on all fronts” must continue. Atrocities against Dalits “go unabated” and the rights of Adivasis “continue to be trampled upon,” he continued.

“Selectively chosen” corporates are “favoured,” Mr. Gandhi said, not the aam aadmi; youth, even those who have good education, “face the spectre of unemployment. Non-availability of bank credit has choked small businesses. In the last 20 months, exports have registered negative growth.”

Farmers’ suicides and agrarian “unrest” increased to “astonishing levels” and the government was trying to hide its failures behind numbers that had been widely “doubted and questioned,” he said, even as he charged BJP-ruled States with “diluting and undermining” laws passed by Parliament.

“The Modi government is lobbying with States via informal channels to deny work under the MGNREGA to the very poor,” he said.