Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, November 12, accused Congress and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi of treating the Constitution as though it were their personal possession. Speaking in New Delhi at the Kisan Tak Bharat Agriculture Conference, organised by the India Today Group, Modi did not name Rahul Gandhi or Congress directly in the core of his remarks, but the target of the criticism was clear from the context of the address.
Modi said some leaders behave as if they are carrying the Constitution in their pockets. He argued that such leaders feel a sense of entitlement to power even when they are out of government, and described this as an intoxicating sense of power outside office. The remarks formed part of a wider critique of the opposition's approach to governance and to public institutions, delivered before an audience gathered for a farm-focused event rather than a political rally.
In the same address, Modi recalled an episode from his tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister. He said Gujarat had topped a ranking of India's best-performing economies during his time in that office. The ranking body, which Modi said was named after a former Prime Minister, was not identified by name in his remarks. He said the assessment rested on research by prominent economists, and he presented the result as a measure of the state's performance under his leadership.
Modi went on to allege that some power holders in Delhi resented Gujarat's reputation for performance. He criticised the researchers behind the study as well, again without naming them, suggesting that their findings had been met with hostility in the capital. The ranking was described only as having come about a long time ago, and no date for it was given in the reporting, so the timing of the episode remains unspecified in the account available.
The Prime Minister also used the occasion to address agriculture. He tied the empowerment of farmers to his government's Viksit Bharat vision, a long-term development goal he has repeatedly invoked, and stressed the need for smarter farming and a stronger agriculture sector. The conference's focus on farm policy gave the speech its immediate setting, although his criticism of the opposition formed a prominent part of what he said.
The reporting does not include any response from Congress or from Rahul Gandhi to Modi's remarks, and no rebuttal from the opposition is recorded. The ranking body and the economists' study referred to by the Prime Minister are not identified in the available account, so their findings are presented here only as Modi's own characterisation of them. The exchange is therefore reported as a one-sided set of claims made from a public platform, with the opposition's position not yet available in the material reviewed.
Source: timesnownews.com
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