Congress leader Rahul Gandhi addresses media at a press conference, in New Delhi.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday attacked the Modi government over privatising government assets claiming that they were being 'sold' to 3-4 industrialists. Addressing a press conference, Rahul Gandhi said, "BJP and PM Modi say nothing happened in the last 70 years. But yesterday, finance minister decided to sell the assets that has been built over the last 70 years."
Continuing attacking the government, Rahul Gandhi further said, "What this country has built over the last 70 years, is being given away. There is an excuse they have come up with that "we are leasing these"...The government clearly mishandled the economy and doesn't know what to do. They (Government) have basically destroyed what the UPA built and now as a last resort, they are selling everything that we had helped create. To me, this is a huge tragedy."
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Rahul Gandhi mentioned a number of government assets that he claimed the Centre is planning to privatise including railways, airports, pipelines among other businesses.
"We are not against privatization but our privatization plan had a logic. We didn't privatize strategic industries & we consider Railways as strategic industry because it transports lakhs of crores of people and also employs lots of people," Rahul Gandhi said.
"We privatized chronically loss-making industries. We privatized the companies that had minimal market share. We didn't privatize government enterprises with the potential of checking private sector monopoly in a particular sector," Rahul Gandhi added.
We are not against privatization but our privatization plan had a logic. We didn't privatize strategic industries & we consider Railways as strategic industry because it transports lakhs & crores of people and also employs lots of people: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi
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