Rahul reiterates ‘suit-boot govt’ jibe; says PM, friends want to usurp land

Addressing a rally in West Champaran where Mahatma Gandhi had waged a battle to free farmers from indigo farming forced by Britishers, the Congress Vice-President suggested that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the anti-thesis of the Mahatma.

“While the Mahatma shed his suit and donned a dhoti as he led the poor farmers, Modi who claimed to have started as a <g data-gr-id="44">chaiwala</g> (tea seller) started wearing Rs 15 lakh suit after becoming Prime Minister,” Gandhi said, painting Modi and the BJP-led NDA as a ‘club of the rich’.

On the one hand, there is Gandhiji who worked amid the poor and the labourers, shed his suit and on the other, there is Modiji who meets only people who wear suit boot and not the poor and the oppressed.

“He says that <g data-gr-id="51">I and my friends wearing suit-boot will</g> change India. Give two crore new jobs every year, provide 100 per cent enhanced minimum support price to farmers for their produce and would deposit Rs 15 lakh in everyone’s account by getting back black money stashed abroad. Tell me whether any of these things happened?,” Gandhi asked amid cries of ‘No, no” from the audience. A day before the Congress is organising a mega-<g data-gr-id="53">kisan</g> <g data-gr-id="54">samman</g> rally in the national Capital, the Congress scion warned people of the backward agrarian state that “Modiji and his friends wearing suit-boot want to usurp your land. 

They say you give your land and they will give development and jobs to the youth of Bihar. “Your land will be taken away and you will not get any employment. We have formed this alliance because we want to protect poor, weak and the oppressed. We want to save you from Modiji and his friends”. Gandhi said that if the BJP government comes to power in Bihar, two-three people from Gujarat and Delhi wearing expensive suits will come and claim the land asking for the removal of the farmers from there. 

Gandhi also alluded to the recent controversy in the BJP-ruled Maharashtra over making Marathi language mandatory for getting <g data-gr-id="46">license</g> to ply auto. “When you go to other states for jobs like <g data-gr-id="55">Maharasthra</g>, then you will be told that you will not get that because you do not know their language,” he said.

Attacking Modi on the issue of corruption, he cited the Lalit Modi controversy, Vyapam scam and PDS scam in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh respectively.

Projecting the grand secular alliance as “pro-poor and pro-farmer”, the Congress Vice-President said if the alliance formed the government the voice of the weak and poor will be heard and youth will be given Rs 4 lakh loan for education.

Former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar was also present on the dais from which Gandhi talked about the contribution of B R Ambedkar and Jagjivan Ram for the cause of <g data-gr-id="45">dalits</g>. “It was not only Gandhiji, who fought for the poor. B R Ambedkar, Jagjivan Ram, Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru also fought for them. Congress party works for them,” he said seeking to contrast it with the functioning of the RSS and the BJP.

“RSS and BJP think in a different manner. They believe that the poor and the weaker sections have no knowledge. They do not come to you and do not mix up with you. They want to keep their suits clean,” he said citing the example of BJP-ruled Rajasthan where a person below 10th pass cannot contest local bodies’ elections.