Former Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Thursday, 8 February, said her son and current president of the Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, was her ‘boss’ too.
While speaking at the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting, Gandhi wished her son all the best, saying:
We have a new Congress president and on your behalf and my own I wish him all the best. He is now my boss too. Let there be no doubt about that.
Lauding the party for its efforts in the Gujarat Assembly elections and the Rajasthan bypolls, the veteran leader said:
We performed very creditably under tough circumstances in Gujarat and the recent by-election results in Rajasthan were huge. This shows winds of change are coming. I am sure Karnataka too will underline the resurgence of the Congress.
The Congress won in the constituencies of both Alwar and Ajmer in the recently concluded Lok Sabha bypolls in Rajasthan.
Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech in the Lok Sabha, where he had targeted the Congress, Gandhi accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of launching a ‘systematic assault’ on the foundation of democracy, in their four years of governance.
It has been almost four years since this government came to power. This has been a period in which institutions that are at the foundation of our democracy have come under systematic assault—Parliament itself, the judiciary, media and civil society. Investigative agencies have been let loose against political opponents.Sonia Gandhi
Further, rubbishing the PM’s claims about the economy, Gandhi said the agricultural distress faced by the farmers across the country was evident in the increasing number of suicides stemming from rural areas.
She also attacked the government on its inefficiency in creating jobs, stating that unemployment continued with its rampant streak in the country.
Unemployment is staring at our youth. New jobs are not only not being created, but existing jobs themselves are being lost.
Invoking the political turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir, she slammed the government for inaction in curbing cross-border terrorism.
Also reiterating Rahul Gandhi’s earlier statement on the government’s perceived silence on the Rafale deals, Gandhi said:
And what do we make of the government resorting to fictitious arguments to justify the secrecy about the price of one of India’s biggest defence purchases – the Rafale fighter aircraft? Or its refusal to respond to wholly justified demands to satisfactorily investigate certain sensitive legal cases of far reaching political consequence.
Wrapping up her address at the meet, Gandhi urged her party members to be prepared for the fast-approaching Lok Sabha elections, stating that it could be called earlier than expected.
...We must not only highlight the abject failures of the Modi government but more importantly, build a positive and credible narrative for ourselves on issues of public concern.
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