Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who was in his Lok Sabha constituency Amethi on Wednesday, targeted the Prime Minister on GST and said Narendra Modi should hand over power to the Congress if the NDA government fails to provide employment to youths and redress the problems of farmers. The Congress will execute the tasks within six months, he said.
This was Rahul’s first visit here since the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh six months ago in which the Congress lost in all the seats of Amethi.
Rahul said the Centre should work on two major issues —- welfare of farmers and employment to youths. “Agar yeh nahin kar sakte hain…. Agar Modiji nahin kar sakte hain to phir keh dein ki main nahin kar sakta hoon aur ab Congress party aa jaye woh mera kaam kar de. Aur hum woh kaam 6 mahine ke andar karke dikha denge (If Modi can’t do it then he should say it that he can’t do it and now the Congress should come and do my work. We will do it within six months),” Rahul told a chaupal at a ground near the Lucknow-Varanasi national highway.
Talking about “Made in China” products, he said the country would not move ahead until there is Made in India, Made in Amethi and Made in Uttar Pradesh. “Modiji should stop wasting the time of the country and he should start giving employment to youths,” he said.
He said that around 30,000 youths search for job every day in India but only 450 get jobs. “This is the Make in India of the Modi government,” Rahul said, adding that he compared the data with China and it says that nearly 50,000 new youths get jobs daily in China.
“The entire nation knows that this person (Modi) had said that 2 crore youths will get jobs every year, but this man is not capable of doing that…. Resentment is growing across the country,” Rahul said.
Advising Modi to review GST according to its objective, Rahul said the GST was a programme of the Congress and it had said that there should be a single tax and it should not exceed 18 per cent. The Centre should think about reducing and simplifying it. The government should also speak to small and middle-class traders and resolve the problems they are facing. It was a suggestion from him as a leader from the Opposition, but he was not sure whether the government will accept that or not, Rahul said.
“Inhone GST ko samjha nahin aur galat GST lagu kar diya (they did not understand what the GST is and implemented it wrong),” he said. “They created five different taxes with maximum tax of 28 per cent. A separate law was enacted in every state. Small traders too have to fill up three forms every month,” he said.
Rahul said that the Congress government gave four national highways, a food park and several other infrastructure projects to Amethi, but the BJP has hurt the people of Amethi. He alleged said that the food park project was removed from Amethi. The Congress will deliver double than what was done in the past here, he added.
Rahul said he could show people a video of the BJP national president Amit Shah in which he said that the promise of Rs 15 lakh (into bank accounts of people) was a “chunavi jumla”. The BJP’s promise to develop Amethi like Japan, employment to 2 crore youths and help to farmers, all that was “chunavi jumla”, he added.
Rahul addressed the chaupal at Kathaura village, the place for which Rahul had visited the office of National Highways Authority of India in Lucknow two months back with farmers who had alleged discrepancies in compensation given to them in exchange for the land acquired for a road project. “I have heard the file related to the issue has been sent to Delhi…. Let’s see what happens,” Rahul told the gathering.
Targeting Modi again, he said: “Modi speaks about Swachh Bharat but he does not ask anyone to know whether somebody really wants Swachh Bharat or not. One morning he will wake up and say that he wants Swachh Bharat, brooms will be given to entire country to start the work.”
