Congress MP Rahul Gandhi today attacked the Narendra Modi government on the state of the economy, saying what India needed was not propaganda, manipulated news cycles and foolish theories about millennials, but a concrete plan to fix the economy.
Party president Sonia Gandhi too expressed concern over the 'grim' economic situation in the country and accused the BJP government of misusing its mandate in the 'most dangerous' fashion.
She made the remarks while chairing a meeting of top party leaders from across the country to finalise plans for Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary celebrations. Rahul was not present at the meeting.
Further, it was also decided at the meeting that all Pradesh Congress Committee delegates will hold meetings on the economy in their areas, which will be attended by veteran party leaders.
Rahul’s attack on the government came two days after finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the slowdown in the automobile sector was due to many factors like the change in mindset of millennials, who now prefer taxi aggregators like Ola and Uber instead of committing monthly installments to own a car. 'What India needs isn't propaganda, manipulated news cycles & foolish theories about millennials, but a concrete plan to #FixTheEconomy that we can all get behind,' Rahul said in a tweet.
'Acknowledging that we have a problem is a good place to start,' the former Congress president said.
At the Congress meeting, Sonia asserted that the BJP government was testing the resolve and resilience of the Congress, which must now embark on an agitational agenda to reach out to the masses in exposing the ruling party.
All that the government is indulging in is 'unprecedented vendetta politics' to divert attention from the mounting losses on the economic front, she said. The Congress has announced that there will a mass agitation between October 15 and October 25 in view of the economic slump.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh too was present at the meeting. 'We are in the midst of dangerously protracted slowdown and the economy was going from bad to worse,' he said.
Singh said that the most important thing the BJP government must understand and accept is that there is a problem in the economy.
On the economic slowdown, the former Prime Minister said that about 4.5 lakh houses are built in eight metros, but no one is ready to purchase these. He also said that the government had failed to utilise the depreciation of Indian currency in terms of exports.
In an interview earlier, Singh had said that exploiting emerging export opportunities due to the tariff war between the US and China can work as a remedy for the economic slowdown.