Rahul Gandhi questions the development model, citing lack of jobs, farmers’ land acquisition
Ankleshwar in the south of Gujarat is not known as the Congress bastion. For almost 30 years, Congress has not ventured to hold a big rally here. But on Wednesday, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi not only addressed a decent rally here, but also launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's highly praised Gujarat Model.
"What is Gujarat development model? For Tata's Nano, Modiji took land from the farmers forcefully and handed it over to the Tatas to set up a car factory. Besides, he also offered loans of Rs 33000 crores. What happened? Neither do we see Nano cars on roads nor has this company given jobs to locals. Instead of giving Rs 33000 crore in loan to private companies, the BJP led government would have waived off farmers' loan," he said. He also pointed that even though the government acquired land from farmers, they were not given adequate nor were they given jobs.
He then went after the much-touted Vibrant Gujarat summits held every year. "What is the end result of these summits? Are the people of Gujarat getting jobs? They only sign MoUs with companies, but hardly any companies set their shop here and provide employment," Rahul said.
"Modiji's arbitrary policies have ruined our economy and brought down the GDP growth by 2 percent. Is this the Gujarat Model?" he asked. He also pointed out how Modi had promised two crore jobs every year and had managed only one lakh jobs so far. "As many as 30 lakh youths in Gujarat are jobless. Hundreds of thousands of youngsters are getting out of educational institutes every year and they want jobs but where are they? In Gujarat, both education and healthcare sectors are dominated by private players and one gets nothing if you don't have money. This is Gujarata Model As many as 15000 public schools have closed down. Youths like Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mewani and Alpesh Thakore are frustrated. So also farmers, farm labourers. They want change. They want their own government," Rahul told the cheering crowd. Rahul then went on to compare Indian economy with China where 50000 jobs were being created every day against one lakh over three years in India.
"Gujarat traders and small scale industries are the backbone of Gujarat and India's economy but the Prime Minister one fine day announced demonetization and subsequently, the GST. These two steps damaged the economical backbone. Many people lost their jobs, small businesses suffered huge losses. Is this Gujarat model?" he asked. His question resonated with many in the Ankleshwar rally where several small firms had to shut shop following demonetization and GST.
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