No country can progress if it does not give equal space for women, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said in Tiruppur on Saturday.
Interacting with industrial workers in the knitwear city, he said women played a central role in the country's development. So they have to be supported and given equal space. “Unfortunately, the organisation that controls India today is a fascist, male chauvinist organisation. Women are not even allowed in the RSS,” he alleged.
When asked about demonetisation, he said that there was a systematic assault on poor people in the country. The demonetisation, GST and COVID-19 response were not policy mistakes but were done on purpose to break the backbone of workers and MSMEs, he alleged. Now the three new farm laws were the demonetisation for the farmers.
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“We have to fight these in the organised way...our job is to make him (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) understand the power of poor people, workers and farmers,” he said. There should not be two Indias - one of the rich and doing well, and the other India that is starving. “We are interested in one India where everyone is treated properly,” he said. If there was a Congress government at the Centre, it would protect the interests of the farmers, workers, MSMEs and the poor.
Mr. Gandhi also said that while he was visiting people, listening and interacting with them, the Prime Minister only discussed with a few people who were big businessmen. The Congress party is against privatisation of strategic public sector units as it believes that these units are critical to a strong country, he said in response to a question on privatisation of PSUs.