PM Modi snatches livelihood of youths by selling govt-run industries to select businessmen: Priyanka Gandhi

Bhopal, Nov 8

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Wednesday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of snatching the livelihood of the youth of the country by selling Government-run industries and institutions to select businessmen.

Priyanka Gandhi said the Congress governments set up industries to provide jobs to the youth of the nation, but the BJP Government at the Centre sold all public industries, which is their (BJP) policy to hand over the control of Government-run companies to industrialists.

Addressing a poll rally in Sanwer seat in Indore district of Madhya Pradesh, the Congress leader said the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s idea behind setting up institutions like the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was to take the country forward.

“The Congress brought IIM and big hospitals like AIIMS, but it has become the BJP's policy to hand over Government-run companies to industrialists and take out the money from people's kitty,” Priyanka Gandhi said, adding that “people should evaluate between the BJP and the Congress’ policies.”

Targeting the BJP-led Centre over the condition of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Priyanka Gandhi said that government-run companies have been given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's industrialist friends.

“There is privatisation of jobs, pension of the government employees has been stopped and employees wonder what happened to their money,” she said.

“PM Modi says nothing has happened in the last 70 years (of Congress rule). The school attended by Modi ji was built by the Congress. I don’t know if Modi ji went to college but at least the certificate of his degree in - entire political science - must have been printed by the computer given by the Congress,” she added.

The Congress General Secretary said that at that time, her father Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister and he wanted to bring computers in the country. "But such people had opposed it," she said, apparently targeting Modi.

While addressing the rally, Gandhi reiterated the poll guarantees given by the Congress. She said that if the party came to power in the state, the Congress would provide Minimum Support Price (MSP) of Rs 2,600 for wheat and Rs 2,500 for paddy, farm loan waiver, free electricity up to 100 units and half the tariff up to 200 units of usage, old pension scheme for government employees, Rs 500 for LPG cylinder and 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC).

Among other things, she also mentioned some other guarantees of the party including a caste census, filling up of two lakh government posts, fee waiver for recruitment exams and free education up to Class 12 along with scholarships.

Elections to the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly will be held on November 17 and the counting of votes will take place on December 3.