All PM does is make excuses: Rahul Gandhi

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, hitting back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for targeting the Gandhi family on Friday, 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.” He was responding to a question on Mr Modi blaming the Gandhi family for not allowing Parliament to function and the charge that they are taking revenge for the Congress’ defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. “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,” Mr Gandhi said.

He regretted that perhaps Mr Modi was still not aware that the job of the Prime Minister was to run the country and not make excuses.

Noting that for some time the Congress has been talking about how the Modi government does not work for the poor, workers and farmers, Mr Gandhi said it was “puzzling that even industrialists are crying before us”.

“Big industrialists are coming to us and saying that Modiji may be running the government for us, but he is not able to do our work. So Modiji will certainly give excuses,” he said, adding that this government “acts only in the interests of three or four of their crony capitalist friends”.

Mr Gandhi was interacting with the media after a meeting with PCC presidents.

“They spoke about how BJP CMs, Modiji and RSS are disturbing and 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 the policies and programmes the Congress had started for the poor.

He said the Congress pressure the government so that “they pay attention to the pain of farmers in India today, the pain of the workers and labourers in this country today”.