Addressing India's distressed farmers directly from outside Parliament, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said he will not let Prime Minister Narendra Modi sleep until all farm loans have been waived.
"We promised to waive loans in 10 days. In two states, we did it within six hours and we would do it in the third state very soon," Gandhi told reporters outside Parliament.
"We will not let Prime Minister Narendra Modi sleep until loans of all farmers are waived," the Congress president said.
However, before the commencement of his press conference, a video of him getting briefed by the other Congress leaders went viral.
Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ahmad Patel and Jyotiraditya Sindhiya were constantly feeding him about what he has to say and how he has to attack PM Narendra Modi in the press conference.
Some of the conversations were also recorded by the ambiance mics of the cameras.
As the press conference started, Rahul Gandhi launched a stinging attack on the government and said it has turned a blind eye to the loans given to 15 top industrialists of the country, including Reliance Group chairperson Anil Ambani, but made no effort to alleviate the woes of the farmers in the last four and half years.
He was referring to the Congress' newly formed governments in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh fulfilling promises made ahead of the Assembly polls and waiving loans on Monday. A Congress government, led by Ashok Gehlot, was also sworn in in Rajasthan.
Issuing a challenge to the prime minister, Gandhi said, "If the Modi government does not waive farm loans, we guarantee to waive farm loans if voted to power in 2019."
The loans of friends of Modi and BJP president Amit Shah had been waived, claimed Gandhi.
"There will be many more typos coming now," he said when asked about government's claim on the "error" in the affidavit given to the Supreme Court on the Rafale issue.
The government claimed in its affidavit that the Rafale pricing issue has been looked into by the CAG whose report has been discussed in Parliament's Public Accounts Committee.
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(With inputs from PTI)
