NEW DELHI, Feb 3: Claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative has failed, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Monday presented an alternative vision of greatly enhancing the participation of Dalits, tribals and OBCs, as well as ensuring that the energy and mobility revolution is not given up to the Chinese.
He, however, conceded that successive governments, be it the Congress-led UPA or the the BJP-led NDA, have not been able to tackle unemployment and give a clear cut answer to the youth on employment.
Speaking on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address, Gandhi centred his address around on what a presidential address under an INDIA bloc government would look like.
“When we talk to the US, we wouldn’t send our foreign minister to (get) our PM invited to his (US President’s) coronation. We will not send our foreign minister 3-4 times (to say) please invite our prime minister… because if we had a robust production system and were working on technologies, the US President would come to India and invite our PM,” Gandhi said to protests from the treasury benches with Union minister Kiren Rijiju asking him not to make “unsubstantiated allegations” on India’s foreign policy.
Gandhi’s remarks were an apparent reference to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar travelling to the US ahead of President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Jaishankar, later represented India at the inauguration on January 20.
Noting that India’s future is going to be decided by the youth, Gandhi said the country has grown at a fast pace in the past and is now growing at a slower rate, but it has not been able to address the universal problem of unemployment.
“Neither the UPA government nor today’s NDA government has given a clear cut answer to the youth about unemployment,” the former Congress chief said.
He also said ‘Make in India’ was a good idea, but the prime minister “pretty much failed”.
He said the alternative vision must answer how the problem of unemployment will be solved.
Every government since 1990 has done a decent job on organising consumption but the record of the country in organising production is dismal, Gandhi said.
He said that due to rising unemployment, social tension is on the rise in India.
Gandhi said that his message to the youth is that a mobility revolution is taking place as “we are moving from the world of the internal combustion engine to the world of the electric motor and we are moving from petrol to batteries”.
He said China has a 10-year lead over India in terms of the revolution.
“Our president’s address will say to youngsters, we will choose critical areas in each one of these technologies and we will start to build capabilities in those areas. We would ensure our banking system is not captured by 2-3 companies, our banking system is open, dynamic and accessible to small and medium businesses,” he said.
“Today, we have the Chinese (on our land) but the Prime Minister has denied it, the Army disagreed with the Prime Minister,” he said, to strong protests from the treasury benches. “The PM has denied that Chinese forces are inside our territory but for some reason our army keeps talking to the Chinese about their entry into our territory and our chief of army staff has said that the Chinese are inside our territory,” he said.
Gandhi claimed the reason China is inside this country is because ‘Make in India’ has failed and India is refusing to produce. “I am worried that India is going to give up this revolution to the Chinese once again,” he said.
He asserted the President’s address was pretty much the same the year before and the year before that, and it was a laundry list of things that the government has done.
Later, in a post on X, Gandhi shared his address on X and said, “As the world stands on the brink of a technological and economic revolution, India needs a new vision for growth, production, and participation, one that directly addresses our two biggest challenges: the job crisis and the lack of opportunity for 90% of Indians.”
Gandhi said that in a world where wars are not fought between armies but between industrial systems, our dependence on Chinese imports like motors and batteries puts us at risk. (PTI)
