Rahul Gandhi on Monday told the Lok Sabha that the President’s address at the start of the budget session had been “repetitive”. He went on to unveil an “alternative President’s address” of the INDIA bloc, focused on raising production to tackle joblessness and counter China’s global domination.
Rahul appeared to cut Prime Minister Narendra Modi some slack, calling his pet Make-in-India project a “good idea”. But he quickly added that the scheme had failed to tackle unemployment while acknowledging that even the previous Congress-led UPA government had tripped up on this front.
He said the President’s address to both Houses of Parliament on Friday had been “repetitive” and presented the “same laundry list of things the government has done”, adding that he had struggled to maintain steady attention.
BJP members are learnt to have submitted a privilege notice against Sonia Gandhi for describing President Droupadi Murmu as a “poor thing” on Friday, and are apparently planning a similar move against Rahul for his “false” claims and description of the President’s address as “repetitive”.
Rahul said the “alternative President’s address” of the INDIA bloc would focus on the youth and ways to tackle unemployment. He said joblessness was a universal problem that had also afflicted India.
“Neither the UPA governments nor the NDA has given a clear-cut answer to the youth about employment. Make-in-India was a good idea. We saw the statues, the events, the so-called investment, and the result is right in front of us,” he said as Modi listened attentively.
Modi was in the House for the leader of the Opposition’s speech on the motion of thanks to the President’s address.
Rahul said the manufacturing sector accounted for 15.3 per cent of the GDP in 2014, which had now shrunk to 12.6 per cent — the lowest in 60 years, according to the Congress leader. “I’m not blaming the PM. Not fair to say he did not try. He tried but he failed (to address unemployment),” he said.
On the ways the “alternative President’s address” meant to tackle joblessness, Rahul said measures were needed on both the “consumption and production” fronts. “Since 1990, the governments have done a decent job on consumption but failed in organising production,” he said.
Rahul held up his mobile phone and said the government claimed the phone was made in India but it was actually “assembled in India”.
“All the chips are made in China and they have been assembled in India,” he said.
The government benches listened quietly but erupted in protest when Rahul referred to China’s dominance inproduction to slam the Modi government.
“People talk about AI, but it’s important to understand that AI on its own is absolutely meaningless because AI operates on top of data,” he said.
“….Every single piece of data that comes out of the production system in the world… the data to make basically all electronics on the planet today is owned by China. And the consumption data is owned by the United States.”
He added: “…If we had a production system, we would not send our foreign minister to the US to seek invitations for our Prime Minister to their (US President’s) coronation.”
This drew protests from parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju and others. Rijiju said the claim was false and accused Rahul of misleading the House and demeaning the country.
Later, foreign minister S. Jaishankar took to X to accuse Rahul of spreading “falsehood”. He said he had travelled to the US to meet the secretary of state and the national security adviser of the outgoing Joe Biden administration, and at no stage was an invitation for Modi to Donald Trump’s swearing-in discussed.
Another of Rahul’s allegations — that China was squatting on 4,000sqkm of Indian territory — also riled the ruling benches.
“The PM has denied it but the army chief has contradicted him. Our chief of army staff has said that the Chinese are inside our territory,” Rahul said amid an uproar.
He said China had been able to occupy Indian territory because of its dominance in production and the failure of the Make-in-India initiative.
“The reason China is sitting inside this country is (that) India is refusing to produce and I’m worried that India is going to give up this revolution to the Chinese once again,” he said.
He added that when “we fight a war with China, we will be fighting with Chinese electric motors, Chinese batteries and Chinese optics”.
Rahul pushed for a countrywide caste census, stressing that joblessness could not be tackled without the “participation” of the OBCs, Dalits and the tribal communities in the production system.
“Combining the data from the caste census with Artificial Intelligence can work wonders and challenge China,” he said.
He then held up a red-bound book — a pocket edition of the Constitution — and accused the BJP-RSS of seeking to undermine the values enshrined in it.
“I remember, before the elections, all of you (BJP) were saying ‘400 paar’ and you were saying you would change this (the Constitution). And then I was glad to see that the Prime Minister walked in and was forced to bow his head in front of the Constitution,” he said.
He questioned the Chief Justice of India’s removal from the panel that selects election commissioners, and the addition of nearly 70 lakh voters to Maharashtra’s electoral rolls in the six months between the general election and the Assembly polls.
“We are asking the Election Commission to please give us the names and addresses and polling booths of all the voters in the Lok Sabha (polls) and all the voters in the Assembly (elections) so we can calculate who these new voters are,” Rahul said.
He said he was confident the poll panel would not provide the information.