National News
Rahul is my boss, says Sonia
The former Congress chief hits back at Modi for his attack on the party in Parliament on Wednesday.
Former Congress chief and Parliamentary party leader of the pary, Sonia Gandhi on Thursday, February 8, 2018 said that Congress president Rahul Gandhi is now her boss too and asked party MPs to work with him to strengthen the party.
Presiding a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party, Ms. Gandhi called her son and recently appointed party chief, Rahul Gandhi, her ‘boss’ and attacked the Modi government as one that is about “Maximum Marketing, Minimum Delivery”.
Calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech in Parliament on Wednesday as “arrogant”, the former Congress chief said the current government repackaged old schemes including the new health insurance scheme with the “flourish of a magician.”
Ms. Gandhi also made it clear that she would continue as chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Group and would work with the “party president and other like minded parties to defeat the BJP in the next Lok Sabha election.”
“This government announces what it calls new programmes and initiatives ever so often, unveiling them with the flourish of a magician. In reality, they are simply recycled schemes that were launched during the UPA government. True, the new names are catchy and colourful, perhaps much more so than during our time, we must admit. But this seems to be a game of Maximum Publicity, Minimum Government, or put another way, Maximum Marketing, Minimum Delivery,”she said at the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting on Thursday morning.
‘Modi govt out of touch with reality’
The former Congress chief hit back at Prime Minister Modi for his attack on the Congress party in Parliament on Wednesday.
“If this government is to be believed, India had accomplished nothing before May 2014. The arrogance and dishonesty of this tells us that the Modi government is out of touch with reality, and lives by its own propaganda and lies. We need no further evidence of this than the Prime Minister’s speech in the Lok Sabha yesterday morning,”Ms. Gandhi.
Covering a range of issues, she pointed out that agriculture was in distress, unemployment was on the rise, small and medium scale industries in shambles, dalits and minorities lived in fear because of polarisation.
“Such polarisation is criminal in a democracy, yet those in power look the other way.” Ms. Gandhi said the government didn’t believe in institutionalised process but personaliSed diplomacy and once again attacked the government for being silent on the Rafale deal.
Asking her party men to be prepared for the Lok Sabha elections anytime, she complimented the Congress’s performance in Gujarat and the bypolls in Rajasthan.
She also sent a clear message that there shouldn’t be two power centres within the in the party right at the beginning of her speech
“It has been quite a long while since we met as a group and for this I seek your indulgence. In the meantime, we have elected a new Congress President and on your behalf and on my own, I wish him all the very best. He is now my boss too — let there be no doubt about that — and I know that all of you will work with him with the same dedication, loyalty and enthusiasm as you did with me,”she said.
