The Congress on Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of sacrificing the interest of Indian farmers in the trade deal with the US following his mention in the Epstein files.

The Congress and its allies had on Thursday staged a walkout from the Rajya Sabha within five minutes of Modi’s speech on the motion of thanks to the President’s address in which he pilloried the party and the Gandhi family for intolerance, non-performance and corruption.

On Friday, Rajya Sabha Chairman C.P. Radhakrishnan told Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge that he should have listened to the Prime Minister’s speech.

“I wanted to listen to him. But it was not worth it. So I left,” Kharge said.

In a series of tweets and video messages on X, Kharge responded to Modi’s criticism of the Congress. “The truth is that Modi has been troubled for the past few days because details linking him to the Epstein files have surfaced. Following this, Modi capitulated to Trump and signed the trade deal, sacrificing the country’s farmers in the process. Modi is making our people poor and enriching American farmers,” Kharge said.

Kharge referred to US agriculture secretary Brooke L. Rollins’s remarks that the pact would pump money into rural America by enabling the US to export products to India.

On Saturday, the external affairs ministry had described the mention of Modi in the emails of human trafficker and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as “trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal”.

In his speech on Thursday, Modi had said the Congress was unable to stomach his continuation as Prime Minister because the party thought it was entitled to rule the country. Modi also accused the Gandhi family of wrongly using the surname. He said the Congress insulted the President, tribals, Dalits, women, people of the Northeast and the Constitution by disrupting the motion of thanks in the Lok Sabha.

Kharge on Friday called the allegations baseless, adding that Modi did not answer the questions raised by the Opposition on issues involving national security as highlighted in the book by former army chief General M.M. Naravane. “The defence minister and the home minister repeatedly said it has not been published. That is wrong. I fail to understand why they objected to Rahul Gandhi when he wanted to read from the book,” Kharge said.

Dismissing Modi’s reference to Rahul’s “traitor” jibe against Ravneet Singh Bittu as an insult to the Sikh community, Kharge said: “Dr Manmohan Singh became finance minister and Prime Minister during the Congress government. But Modiji respects neither the Sikhs, nor the Dalits, nor the tribals. The only thing on his mind is how to belittle others,” he said.