“Job of the Prime Minister is not to make excuses” and he should start running the country, a combative Rahul Gandhi asserted on Friday hitting back at Narendra Modi for targeting the Gandhi family.
The Congress vice-president’s remarks came ahead of the budget session of Parliament beginning February 23, 2016, signalling that that the main opposition will confront the NDA dispensation on several issues.
“Job of the Prime Minister is to run government, job of the Prime Minister is not to make excuses”, Mr. Gandhi told reporters while taking on the Prime Minister who had earlier in Assam accused the first family of the Congress for disruption in Parliament.
Taking a swipe at Mr. Modi, Mr. Gandhi remarked, “All the Prime Minister has been doing for the last 18 months is to make excuses as to why the economy is not running, why the farmers are not getting their due, why the labourers are not getting what they should get”.
The Congress vice-president’s remarks came when his reaction was sought over Mr. Modi pinning the blame on the Mr. Gandhi family for Parliament not functioning and the charge that they are taking revenge for defeat in Lok Sabha polls.
“India did not choose Narendra Modi to make excuses. India chose a leader and the leader should not make excuses, the leader should do the job that he has been elected to do,” he said.
He regretted that perhaps Mr. Modi is still not aware that the job of the Prime Minister is to run the country and not to make excuses and that “he should start running the country“.
Noting that for some time the Congress has been talking about how the Modi government does not work for the poor, workers and the farmers, Gandhi said, it is “puzzling that even industrialists are crying before us“.
“Big industralists are coming to us and telling that Modi ji may be running the government for us, but he is not able to do our work. So Modi ji will certainly give excuses”, he said.
He said this government “acts only in the interest of three or four of their crony capitalist friends”.
He was interacting with the media after a meeting with the PCC presidents on the issue of implementation of MGNREGA which completed 10 years this month.
“They spoke about how BJP CMs, Modi ji and RSS are disturbing & bypassing programmes like MGNREGA and Forest Rights Act in different states”, he said, adding that the PCC chiefs also informed him of how the BJP was not taking forward policies and programmes that the Congress started for the poor.
He said the Congress will put pressure on government so that “they pay attention to the pain of farmer in India today, the pain of the workers and labourers in this country today”.
