by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate
‘Will fight for Punjab & its people every single day of my life,’ declares Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh
The voice of the farmers was gagged in Parliament, but it would now resonate in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha and echo in every part of the country till the central government was compelled to withdraw the farm laws, said Rahul Gandhi
CHANDIGARH — Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday joined Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in pledging to force the Union government to revoke the ‘draconian’ farm laws.
Both said these laws would be debated in a special Vidhan Sabha session on Monday with the aim to aggressively and effectively combat the damaging impact of these legislations on farmers.
Asserting that his government will take all steps to counter the ‘black’ laws and protect the farmers of Punjab, Amarinder Singh said he would spend every single day of the rest of his life for the revival of Punjab.
“Whatever time I have left with me, I will fight for the farmers and every other section of the state’s population,” he said.
Condemning what he called the Centre’s anti-farmer legislations that attacked the soul of every farmer and were an assault on Punjab’s future, Amarinder Singh also announced his government’s decision to give proprietary rights to those settled in ‘Lal Dora’ land in villages for long.
Welcoming the Chief Minister’s decision to convene the special session, Rahul Gandhi said the voice of the farmers was gagged in Parliament, but it would now resonate in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha and echo in every part of the country till the central government was compelled to withdraw the farm laws.
“If these laws were in the interest of the farmers, why did the BJP-led government at the Centre not allow a debate on them in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha,” he asked.
Virtually launching the second phase of the Smart Village Campaign (SVC-II), along with Amarinder Singh, the Congress MP assured all panchayats of his party’s full support to them, as well as the farmers and farm labour, in their fight against the new laws.
Representatives of all the Punjab village panchayats participated in the virtual launch programme.
Condemning the farm laws as a blatant attack by the BJP on the soul of each and every farmer of the nation, Rahul said the Centre had launched an assault on Punjab and its farmers with these ill-conceived and unconstitutional legislations.
“Every farmer and labourer is feeling the pain of this attack,” he added.
The AICC leader lashed out at the BJP for allegedly imposing laws on the nation from the top, without taking people at the grass roots into confidence.
“That is the difference between the BJP and the Congress — the former talking about buildings and not foundations,” he said, noting that the farmland was the foundation of every village.
Rahul declared that the Congress will not allow India’s foundations to be weakened in this manner and will go all out to strengthen these foundations.
Pointing out that the past decisions of the BJP government at the Centre had led to total collapse of the economy and promoted large-scale unemployment, the Congress leader congratulated Amarinder Singh for generating jobs for the youth.
Punjab Congress President Sunil Jakhar also took on the BJP on the farm laws which, he said, were designed to kill the farmers and the farming sector.
The state government, he said, should do everything in its power to prevent that from happening.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, News
“The lockdown was not an attack on corona but an attack on the poor of India. It was an attack on the future of our youth, labourers, farmers and small shopkeepers and unorganised sector”
NEW DELHI — Continuing his attack on the government over the state of economy, former Congress President Rahul Gandhi has alleged that the unplanned lockdown broke the backbone of Indian economy and it was the Modi government’s third attack on the unorganised sector.
Releasing his fourth video of the series on Wednesday, Rahul Gandhi said: “The poor, those working in small and medium businesses, are daily wage earners. They eat with what they earn each day. When you announced a lockdown without a notice, you attacked them.”
Gandhi reiterated his point that the lockdown did not yield results as India surpassed Brazil and became the second worst-hit nation by the pandemic. “The Prime Minister said the fight will be for 21 days, the backbone of the unorganized sector broke in 21 days,” he added.
The Congress leader alleged that the government did not pay any heed on the advice of the party and when it was time to open after the lockdown, Congress party told the government several times that helping the poor was essential. “A scheme like NYAY needed to be implemented, money needed to be directly deposited in bank accounts. But they didn’t do it,” said Rahul Gandhi.
The Congress in its letters to the Prime Minister had suggested that for small and medium businesses, the government should prepare a package.
“They needed to be saved. Without this money they would not be able to survive, but the government did nothing. Instead, the government waived off taxes worth lakhs of crores of the richest 15-20 people,” the Congress leader said.
“The lockdown was not an attack on corona but an attack on the poor of India. It was an attack on the future of our youth, labourers, farmers and small shopkeepers and unorganised sector,” Gandhi has been saying this all along.
Earlier Rahul Gandhi in his video had questioned the GST and demonetisation. Rahul Gandhi had said that the GST was the UPA’s idea of easy taxation but the NDA has made it “complex and complicated”.
“The GST implemented by NDA government is different as four slabs of taxes are there to the tune of 28 per cent, it’s very complicated and very difficult to understand,” said Rahul.
The small and medium businesses can’t comply with this tax procedure but the big companies can hire as many accountants as possible, he said.
He had said that “this GST is an absolute failure. Not only is it unsuccessful, it is an attack on the poor and on the small and medium businesses. GST is not a tax system, it is an attack on India’s poor. It is an attack on small shopkeepers, small and medium businesses, farmers and labourers.”
Rahul last week released his second video and alleged that demonetisation was an attack on India’s poor, its farmers, labourers and small shopkeepers and termed it as an attack on India’s unorganised economy.
Rahul Gandhi said that “demonetisation did not erase black money as was claimed by the Prime Minister and it did not benefit the poor and the advantage was given to India’s biggest billionaires.”
He had said demonetisation wiped out cash from the system and due to this the informal sector has suffered because the unorganised economy runs on cash whether it is a small shopkeeper, farmer or labourer.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business
New Delhi : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday promised incentives for entrepreneurs and start-ups to boost job creation in the country, saying there will be no permissions required for the first three years of any new business, no angel tax and sold incentives based on the number of jobs created.
He also promised easy bank credit if the party is voted to power in the Lok Sabha elections.
“Youngsters, Want to start a new business? Want to create jobs for India? Here’s our plan for you: 1. ZERO permissions for the first 3 years of any new business. 2. Goodbye Angel Tax 3. Solid incentives & tax credits based on how many jobs you create. 4. Easy Bank Credit,” Gandhi said in a tweet.
The move is seen as an effort by Gandhi to woo the youth ahead of Lok Sabha elections and keep the focus on economic issues.
Gandhi has been criticising the ruling BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for failing to create promised jobs and the issue is a major poll plank of the Congress .
The promises are part of Congress plan to boost employment opportunities if it comes to power and provide a viable roadmap to achieve the objectives.
–IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Robert Vadra
New Delhi : Robert Vadra, the brother-in-law of Congress President Rahul Gandhi, on Wednesday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning for the seventh time in connection with its probe into a money laundering case.
ED officials said that Vadra arrived at the agency’s Jamnagar office in central Delhi at 10.40 a.m.
The ED has questioned Vadra, for over 42 hours in connection with the case on February 6,7,9 20, 22 and 26.
The case relates to the ownership of overseas assets worth 1.9 million pounds in London by Vadra.
On December 7, the ED had raided several of Vadra’s properties in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru.
Vadra, husband of Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi, is on interim bail till March 2.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling him ‘Prime Time Minister’ and said that when people were crying over the deaths in Pulwama, Modi was indulging “gleefully” in a photoshoot.
“Three hours after the news of the killing of 40 soldiers in Pulwama, ‘Prime Time Minister’ continued shooting the film, Gandhi said.
“There was a lot of pain in the heart of the dear ones of the martyrs — they were going through ‘a sea of emotion’, while the PM was laughing at a photoshoot on a river,” the Congress chief tweeted in Hindi referring to the photoshoot on a lake.
Gandhi’s Twitter dig was preceded by a press conference by party spokesperson Manish Tewari where he raised question over Modi’s actions in the immediate aftermath of the worst ever attack in Jammu and Kashmir since 1989, in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force troopers were killed.
The Congress for the second day on Friday asked why he failed to mention the attack and its victims while addressing a rally in Rudrapur district of Uttarakhand just two hours later.
“We want to ask the Prime Minister what he was doing between 3.10 p.m. (when the attack happened) and 5.10 p.m.
At 4.40 p.m., he addressed a rally through mobile phone. To the best of our knowledge, not even once did he mention the attack,” said Tewari earlier at the presser, where he played a DD news video as evidence of PM’s address.
“If he had condemned the Pulwama attack, he would have paid a tribute to the martyrs.. none of that happened,” he said, adding that Modi “deliberately” chose not to mention the martyrs.
“There can be no greater insensitivity than that,” he said.
The Congress leader said there was an even “more frightening scenario” than the Prime Minister merely failing to mention the attack in his speech.
“Was he unaware of the attack between 3.10 p.m. and 5.30 p.m.? He was either not informed about it by his office or he was incommunicado. That speaks a lot about the state of communication in the higher echelons of Indian state,” Tewari said.
He stressed the point that India being a nuclear power — surrounded by another nuclear power in Pakistan — cannot afford to have leaders who cannot be communicated in time.
“If you (Modi) didn’t know that there was an attack, can there be a greater incompetence,” he said.
The Congress even dismissed government’s decision on Thursday of stopping water of three eastern rivers — the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej — to Pakistan as “high octane jingoism” and termed it a subterfuge to hide the failure of the national security.
“The BJP-NDA government is a brilliant mix of arrogance and ignorance,” he said.
—IANS
