Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the central government over a number of issues in the Lok Sabha. Gandhi began his speech by mocking the Centre's "Fair and Lovely" scheme to convert black money into white. "Modi ji had promised that he will put people with black money behind bars. Now, they have come up with a way to save those people," he said.
Gandhi added that Modi had lied to the nation when he announced the signing of a "historic accord" with Nagaland insurgents. He said, "The Congress President [Sonia Gandhi] asked us to check what had happened because none of our chief ministers had mentioned anything about the Naga accord. We called our North East CMs and they were stunned. They had not heard a word about any accord. What had the government signed? As per media reports, even officials in the Home Ministry and the Intelligence Bureau were not privy to the discussions."
Continuing his tirade against Modi, Gandhi said the prime minister single-handedly destroyed six years of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance's work against terror by visiting his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Lahore. Gandhi said, "We had put Pakistan into a small cage after [the] 26/11 [Mumbai attacks]. We had convinced the world that Pakistan is a global supporter of terrorism... What does the prime minister do? He decides to have a cup of tea with [Pakistan Prime Minister] Nawaz Sharif...Whose opinion does the prime minister listen to? Whose opinion does he respect? The prime minister cannot run the country just on his opinion. The country is not the prime minister; the prime minister is not the country."
Gandhi then lashed out at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party for blindly following its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. "You have been taught by your teachers in RSS that there is only one truth in the universe – your own. Nobody else's opinion matters in the entire world. This is what you have shown in the last two years."
The BJP hit back at Gandhi for his attack on the government, saying his speech was "full of drama but lacked in content". It also called Gandhi a "lying machine" and a "non-serious, part-time politician". Home Minister Rajnath Singh also dismissed Gandhi's statement on the Nagaland accord as "completely false and baseless". He tweeted, "I had several rounds of consultations with the PM on [the] Naga peace process. I strongly condemn Shri Rahul Gandhi's attempt to mislead the house."
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