Barnala (Punjab), Feb 28 (PTI) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Indo-US interim trade deal, alleging that he has signed the “death warrant” of farmers and small and medium industries by opening doors for US goods, including agricultural produce.
“I am saying with responsibility that a storm is approaching. When US’ almonds, apples, pulses, cotton and soybean will come to India, then the storm will hit,” Gandhi said at a rally here.
The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha said that the prime minister did not want to do it and alleged he had acted under “pressure” due to a “threat of releasing Epstein files” and a case against industrialist Gautam Adani’s company in the US.
Addressing the rally in the politically significant Malwa belt of the state, which accounts for 69 of 117 Assembly seats in the state, Gandhi also gave a firm message to the Congress unit in Punjab, which has been plagued by infighting, warning its leaders that they will be made to sit in the reserves if they can not become team players.
Assembly elections in Punjab are due next year.
“I also want to give a message to the Congress party that work is done through teamwork. One player cannot win a match. We have the entire team sitting here.” “From (Congress chief Mallikarjun) Kharge ji and me, I want to give this message that become a team player or else we will make you sit as a reserve player,” he said.
“No matter how big (a leader) you may be, no one is bigger than the party. Become team player and if you do not become one, then I and Kharge ji will set you right,” he said.
Stepping up his attack on the Modi government on the India-US trade deal, Gandhi accused Modi of “selling out” and “destroying” the country and asked what had India received under the trade deal in return when it agreed to “buy US products worth Rs 9 lakh crore every year”.
Gandhi said that if India buys goods worth Rs 9 lakh crore every year, “then what will happen to our small and medium-scale sector? It will be finished”.
“You have sold the country, you have destroyed the country. What did the US give to India? Tell me one thing… Did they give any guarantee? Did they say they will also buy? No,” said Gandhi while addressing the ‘Kisan Mahachaupal’ rally here.
He alleged that the deal had been stalled for four months due to disagreements over the opening of the agriculture sector.
“I asked experts why this deal was stuck. I got a reply that the US wants to open the Indian agriculture sector, and our government does not want to open it,” said Gandhi.
Nothing happened on this front for four months, he said.
He said the prime minister called up the US president without consulting the Cabinet, the Agriculture minister and the Defence minister and the External Affairs minister.
Modi told US President Donald Trump that he was ready for the deal, said Gandhi. and claime that Modi gave a guarantee to Trump that “every year India will buy US products worth Rs 9 lakh crore”.
The deal will “destroy Indian farmers”, he claimed.
Under this deal, India allowed the US to sell soybeans, corn, cotton, fruits and almonds, he said. “Our farmers are not mechanised. They have small land holdings,” he said, adding that in the US, the landholdings are bigger and also mechanised.
“Narendra Modi ji has opened the door of the agriculture sector. Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, farmers of all these states will be ruined,” he alleged.
“US goods will come, and our farmers will be destroyed,” he claimed.
“Narendra Modi did not want to do this. I know it. Because for four months, he was trying to stop it. We have connections in the government, we know the bureaucrats, and we asked them whether they will open the agriculture sector. They said they are not doing it, he said.
Never has any prime minister, be it of the Congress or the BJP, opened the agriculture sector, he said.
Then the question arises — “the work which Modi did not do for four months, why did he do it within 15 minutes?” Gandhi said.
“The question arises — what was the pressure that the Indian PM signed the death warrant of the country, farmers, and small and medium industries and gave our data,” the Congress said.
The US released 35 lakh “Epstein files in which the names of Anil Ambani and Hardeep Singh Puri figured”, he alleged. “These names were brought to threaten Modi. There are 35 lakh more files, and in those files, Modi’s truth is locked. The US and Trump are threatening Modi if he does not sign, then these will be opened,” alleged Gandhi.
He also targeted the Adani group. “In 10-15 years, the BJP has put its entire financial system in the Adani company. Adani is not a normal company. It is a special-purpose vehicle of the BJP. Whatever money is generated goes to Adani and then this money is used in politics,” alleged Gandhi.
“And that is why Modi signed the deal,” he claimed.
Gandhi again alleged that he was not allowed to speak in the Lok Sabha recently after the President’s address because he wanted to comment on former Army chief Manoj Naravane’s “memoirs”.
The Congress leader said he intended to refer to an unpublished book by Gen Naravane (retd), which, he claimed, described a lack of response from the political leadership during Chinese troop movements near the border.
Accusing the Centre of compromising on the country’s energy security, Gandhi claimed that PM Modi told the US that India will buy oil from a country that it wants.
“Neither will we buy oil from Russia, nor from Iran. If you (US) tell us to buy oil from Venezuela, the US and Saudi Arabia, India’s entire energy security will be finished,” Gandhi added.
Referring to the ongoing conflicts of Ukraine and Gaza, Gandhi indicated that the real battle is between China and the US.
Gandhi said if the US has to fight China, then they need Indian data. “Without Indian data, the US cannot fight China,” he said. “China has the world’s data. India is in second place in it. We have crores of people. Without data, there is no meaning of AI (artificial intelligence),” he said.
Data, which is the foundation of a nation in the 21st Century, is the country’s asset, he said. “Under the US-India deal, it has been written in small lines that India’s entire data has been handed over by the PM to the US,” he claimed.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, senior party leaders K C Venugopal, Bhupesh Baghel, Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, Leader of Opposition in Punjab Partap Singh Bajwa, former chief ministers Charanjit Singh Channi and Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Randhawa and another senior leader from the state, Vijay Inder Singla, were present at the rally. PTI CHS SUN VSD RT RT
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