In the Mahabharat, a band of seasoned warriors ensnare the young Abhimanyu in a chakravyuh and kill him.

Rahul Gandhi on Monday compared the BJP’s lotus symbol to this fabled death trap, accusing the Narendra Modi government of using the budget to strangle the aspirations of the common people while strengthening “monopoly business, political monopoly and the deep state or the agencies”.

“Thousands of years ago in Haryana, in Kurukshetra, six people killed a youth, Abhimanyu, in a chakravyuh. Abhimanyu was trapped and killed in the chakravyuh,” Rahul said, participating in the budget discussion in the Lok Sabha.

He said the chakravyuh was also a padmavyuh, a multilayered formation that resembled the lotus (the BJP election symbol), and alleged that it symbolised “fear and violence”.

Rahul’s speech, his second major attack on the Modi government as leader of the Opposition, appeared to leave the ruling side and Speaker Om Birla flustered.

“In the 21st century, a new chakravyuh has been prepared. It is in the form of a lotus and the Prime Minister wears the symbol on his chest. What was done with Abhimanyu is being done with the youth, women, farmers and MSMEs,” he said.

Rahul said the six warriors in the modern-day chakravyuh included Modi and home minister Amit Shah, and went on to name four others, leading to loud protests from the ruling side. The Speaker reprimanded Rahul for violating rules by levelling allegations against people who were not members of the House.

Rahul relented but insisted that he could not make his point without referring to two industrialists who he alleged had established a monopoly over the country’s wealth.

“Okay, I will call them A1 and A2,” he said, with the Speaker appearing clueless about how to handle the situation.

“The Chair expects the leader of the Opposition to follow rules and maintain the dignity and decorum of the House,” Birla said.

He said Congress members had written to him against MPs being allowed to name people who were not members of the House.

Rahul again named the two industrialists later in his speech, and the Speaker warned him again.

“They (the two industralists) have established a monopoly over the country’s wealth, and so how do I indicate towards them?... If you want that we can’t name them, then give us some other system (to refer to them),” he said.

Amid protests from the Treasury benches, parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju rose to accuse Rahul of undermining the dignity of the House by “challenging the Speaker”. This attracted uproar from the Opposition benches.

“I know, Speaker Sir, that the minister has been directed from the top to defend A1 and A2,” Rahul quipped.

He went on: “The chakravyuh that has captured India has three forces behind it. First is the idea of monopoly capital, that two people should be allowed to own the entire Indian money. So, one element of the chakravyuh is coming from the concentration of financial power."

Rahul added: “The second element is the institutions, the agencies — CBI, ED, income tax — and the third is the political executive.”

Rahul said that instead of weakening this chakravyuh to help farmers, labourers and small and medium businesses, the budget’s sole aim seemed to be to “strengthen the framework of monopoly business, political monopoly and the deep state or the agencies”.

Neither Modi nor Shah was present in the House, which prompted Rahul to take a dig. “Let me tell you that the Prime Minister now will not come for any speech I make in the House,” he said, alluding to his first speech early this month that had left the top two rattled.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman were the prominent ministers present in the House.

Rahul accused the government of having destroyed small and medium businesses through the demonetisation and tax terrorism. “The budget did nothing to end this tax terrorism,” he said.

He said the “destruction” of the MSMEs had dried up jobs. He then described as a “joke” the internship programme for youths that the government has announced in the budget.

“…You said that this internship programme applies to only 500 big companies,” he stressed, adding that 99 per cent of the youth would not be able to benefit from the programme.

In a note later, the Congress justified his claim, underlining that the 500 companies employed only 1 per cent of the country’s workforce.

“There was no mention of the paper leak in the budget,” Rahul said, arguing that such exam anomalies, coupled with joblessness, stifled the aspirations of the youth.

Rahul also slammed the Agniveer scheme of short-term recruitments without pension.

Farmers

Rahul said the “annadatas” (food givers) had demanded just one thing to come out of the government’s chakravyuh — legally guaranteed minimum support prices for their produce. “You did not give them legal guarantees in the budget.”

At this point there was a confrontation with the Chair, with Rahul claiming a delegation of farmers had been stopped outside Parliament to prevent them from meeting him. The Speaker accused him of speaking an “untruth”, leading to uproar.

“The government did not give a legal guarantee on MSP in the budget but I on behalf of the INDIA bloc give a guarantee to Hindustan’s farmers that we will give it (when voted to power) by passing a law in this House,” Rahul said.

Middle class

Rahul tried to reach out to the middle class by citing the hike in the short-term capital gains tax and the scrapping of indexation in calculating long-term capital gains.

He said the middle class that had backed Modi had turned towards the INDIA bloc after the budget. “The same middle class has now been stabbed in the back and in the chest in the budget.”

He sought to display a photograph of the customary distribution of sweets among finance ministry officials after the preparation of the budget, but was asked to refrain on the grounds of House rules.

Rahul was looking to use the picture to buttress his demand for a caste census — by highlighting how the disadvantaged sections were deprived of a proper share in the country’s wealth despite making up the bulk of the population.

“India is against this chakravyuh of hatred and violence. India is Shivji ki barat (Lord Shiva’s wedding), in which all sections and communities are welcome,” he said.

“There is no funding for a caste census in the budget…. The INDIA bloc will break the chakravyuh by passing a bill in this House to undertake a caste census to give justice to the SCs, STs, OBCs and the poor.”

Rahul ended his speech with “Jai Hind”.