Taking up from where he had left off before the 2024 elections, Rahul Gandhi again attacked the Modi govt while on a foreign tour, blaming the regime back home for unemployment, the growing influence of RSS and for the Sangh’s allegedly regressive views on women.
The remarks, part of a wider discussion at the University of Texas, elicited a strong reaction from BJP which called the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha a “black spot” on Indian democracy “who sullies the image of India on foreign soil”.
Speaking to students in the US, Rahul, asked about the employment problem, said the US used to be the production hub till the 1960s after which jobs moved to Korea, Japan and China, and China today dominated global production.
“You go to India, you look at the phones, you look at the furniture, you look at the clothes... you will see on the back ‘Made in China’, that’s a fact,” he said, adding that America, Europe and India had given up on the idea of production that creates jobs and had handed it to China. He said Bangladesh too had wiped India clean in textile production. Rahul warned that continued slide in production would create massive social problems and “polarisation of our politics is because of this”.
Giving his ideas about increasing the labour participation of women, Rahul said, “Also, this is part of the ideological fight between BJP and us. BJP and RSS believe that women should be restricted to a particular role. They should stay at home, they should cook food, they should not talk too much, and we believe that women should be allowed to aspire to whatever they want to do.”
BJP slammed Rahul for his comments on RSS and ‘India vs China’ on production, with agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan saying Rahul was the leader of opposition and accountable to the country, but “he has been going abroad and spoiling the image of the country, which is a crime akin to treason”.
“No patriot does this, but it seems that Rahul has become frustrated after Congress lost three times in a row and is venting his frustration in America by tarnishing the country’s image,” he added.
BJP spokesman Gaurav Bhatia said Rahul could not “utter a single word against China, he weakens India... he stands by China”. He linked it to a “party-to-party MoU with China” that Congress has signed.
