Arun Jaitley takes on Rahul Gandhi, mocks his sabbatical
NEW DELHI :Taking a dig at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s comment in Parliament yesterday on Prime Minister’s foreign visits, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday that “at least the nation knew where Narendra Modi was.”
He also said, “There is a difference between traveling abroad for a national duty and for a personal jaunt.”At the same time the Finance Minister also took potshots at Rahul’s ‘suit-boot ki sarkar’ remark against the BJP-led NDA government.
“This is a ‘soojh-boojh ki sarkar’ (a wise government). Let there be no illusions about it,” Jaitley said, adding, “”It is good to be suited but dangerous to be booted out.”Jaitley said this while replying to a debate on Finance Bill in Lok Sabha.
Highlighting the farmers’ plight a day after his Punjab visit, Rahul Gandhi had targeted PM Modi in Lok Sabha yesterday for his foreign tours and had said that he should travel to the state to know first hand about the condition of the farming community.
“Again his (PM’s) tour is on the cards. He has come here for sometime. He should visit Punjab and he will know first hand what is happening to farmers,” the Congress Vice President had said, triggering uproar as BJP members protested, as per a News Agency.
Raising the issue of farmers during Zero Hour a day after his visit to mandis in Punjab, Gandhi had said he wanted to apprise the House of the pain and problems of the state’s farmers whose produce is lying in mandis and is not being procured by the government.
The refrain of Gandhi was that the NDA government had left the farmer to fend for himself.Amid protests by BJP members, Gandhi took a swipe at the Prime Minister’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, questioning whether farmers are not contributing to ‘Make in India’ by providing food to the entire country.
“When there was hailstorm, the government did not help. State governments used to give bonus, farmers tolerated its non-payment. Farmers were lathicharged when they asked for fertiliser. Now their produce is not being lifted from mandis,” he said.
