New Delhi: After his famous ‘suit-boot ki sarkar’ swipe at the NDA Government, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi once again took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that the new slogan of the day was “Arhar Modi.”
Mr Gandhi took a dig at rising price of pulses during a discussion in Lok Sabha on price rise.
While intervening during the discussion on price rise in the Lower House, Mr Gandhi took repeated swipes at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and tore into his election promise of bringing down prices.
A visibly cut up Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who was present in the House, later counter attacked the Opposition Congress and said that despite inheriting double-digit inflation from the UPA Government, the Modi-led dispensation had brought it down to single- digit and hoped that a good monsoon will further bring prices of essential commodities.
As if Mr Gandhi’s attack on the Government was not enough, even other Opposition MPs notably Bhartruhari Mahtab of Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Saugata Roy of the Trinamul Congress (TMC) said that the Government had no remedy to tackle the ‘demon’ of inflation and that it was mainly depending on windfall in terms of low crude prices and good monsoon.
In fact Mr Mahtab gave credit to RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan for trying his best to control inflation, though he did not directly take his name.
Apparently referring to mr Rajan, the BJD MP said the person who has been trying to deal with inflation is now going back to Chicago because someone in the ruling dispensation has asserted that he was not a nationalist.
Earlier in his around 15-minutes speech, Mr Gandhi needled the Prime Minister on his election slogan asking people to make him a “chowkidar” (watchman) and not PM and said under his nose but there was theft of pulses and he was not speaking a word on it.
Mr Gandhi asked the Prime Minister to give a date by which the prices of pulses will come down. The Congress MP in his seventh major intervention in the House during his career, said, “during elections, Modiji had said ‘make me a chowkidar’ (watchman). Now, there is theft of dal under the very nose of the chowkidar. But the chowkidar has not uttered a word. He is mum. Now he has become a big person. Leave that job of chowkidari to the Congress.”
Taking a jibe at the BJP slogan ‘Har Har Modi’ used during the Lok Sabha polls, he said “now people are saying ‘Arhar Modi’. “Give us a date by when the prices of daal will come down,” the Congress leader added.
