'Modi was posing for cameras at the time of Pulwama attack'

Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi

Congress president Rahul Gandhi hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, saying the PM was posing for cameras at the Corbett National Park for a documentary when CRPF jawans were being killed in Pulwama. Launching his party's campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in Uttarakhand, Gandhi also said the Congress would introduce a scheme of guaranteed minimum income for the poor and give bank loans to the youth to set up their own businesses and small industries if elected to power.

BJP veteran and former Uttarakhand chief minister Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri's son Manish Khanduri joined the Congress in the presence of Gandhi at the rally at the Parade Ground here. "Immediately after the Pulwama attack, in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed, the Congress had said it was with the government and the country. I had cancelled all my programmes. "Everyone knows what Narendra Modi was doing when our jawans were being killed in Pulwama. He was posing for the cameras to shoot for a National Geographic documentary," Gandhi said to loud cheers from a large gathering. "Modi shoots for three-and-a-half hours on a day something like Pulwama happens and he still talks about patriotism," he added.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had rejected the charges when they were first levelled by the Congress. On the Rafale fighter jet deal issue, Gandhi reiterated his charge of Modi backing industrialist Anil Ambani in getting a related offset contract, a charge repeatedly denied by the government. "All of you must have heard of Anil Ambani. Can he make an aeroplane? He cannot even make a paper aeroplane as children do," he said, holding up a piece of paper. "Still, Modi took him along with him as part of his delegation to France to ensure that he got the deal worth Rs 30,000 crore," he added.

Gandhi asked why the defence deal, negotiated by the previous UPA regime at Rs 526 crore per aircraft, was finalised by the Modi government for Rs 1,600 crore apiece. Reiterating the "chowkidar chor hai" (the watchman is a thief) barb, the Congress president said he had posed four questions to the prime minister in Parliament on the Rafale deal. "The prime minister delivered a long speech lasting one-and-a-half hours, but failed to answer even one of my questions. All he did was keep looking up, down and sideways. Why? Because he is guilty," he said. Gandhi claimed that even the French president had confirmed that awarding the offset contract to Ambani was a precondition to the deal put forward by Modi.

"The then defence minister Manohar Parrikar is on record saying he had no knowledge about the deal as it was being negotiated directly by the prime minister," he claimed. Gandhi also accused the Modi government of protecting fugitive businessmen such as Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi and wondered "why every wrongdoer is a Modi". He claimed that Mallya had met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before fleeing the country. "Shame on you," he said. The Congress president also mocked the Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana announced by the government for farmers, saying the hype was big but the amount being given was paltry. He said he could not understand why those sitting on the treasury benches in Parliament clapped for five long minutes at an announcement made by Piyush Goyal while tabling the interim budget.

"I asked (Congress leader) Mallikarjun Kharge and was told that farmers were going to be given a dole of Rs 3.5 per day," he said. Gandhi claimed that the Congress, which had emerged victorious in the Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan Assembly polls promising farm loan waiver, had fulfilled the promise within days of coming to power, whereas the loan waiver promised by Modi to the farmers of Uttarakhand was still a distant dream. The Congress chief said if elected to power, his party would introduce a scheme of guaranteed minimum income for the poor, which will go straight into their bank accounts. He also promised to give bank loans to the youth for setting up their own businesses and small industries.

"Modi gave Rs 35,000 crore to Nirav Modi, who, with all that money, must not have generated jobs for more than 50-100 people. Don't you think if this money was given as loans to you, you would have created more jobs?," the Congress chief asked the gathering. He alleged that Modi wanted to create two types of India -- one that belonged to the high and mighty, the Ambanis and Adanis who flew in private planes, and the other that belonged to "people like you, me, the farmers". "We want to create an India that belongs to everyone," Gandhi said. The seven-phased Lok Sabha polls will be held from April 11 to May 19 and the counting of votes will be taken up on May 23.

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