This time his focus was clearly on the India-US trade deal, which he called a “sell-out”.
With most of the Opposition parties, especially those from election-bound states, keen to participate in the discussion on the Budget to try and corner the BJP-led government, the Congress saw reason and let the discussion take place in the Lower House.
Gandhi chose not to initiate the discussion, despite suggestions to that effect from some of his colleagues, to ensure that there is no trouble and other leaders get a chance to make their points.
Echo of Indo-US nuclear deal
His speech Wednesday rekindled memories of the previous Congress-led UPA’s first term when the contentious India-US nuclear deal came up for discussion on many occasions in Parliament, which was also a political hot potato outside. With the Congress’s attempt to craft a political discourse over the Election Commission (EC)’s contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise and alleged vote theft coming a cropper, Gandhi seems to be trying to set a new narrative for his beleaguered party.
His speech was an attempt to tap into widespread concerns in the software industry amid rapid advancement in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven software sector besides making an outreach to farmers and textile workers. In other words, he wanted to reach out to the middle class youth, a large section of which dream to be a part of the IT industry, and to appeal to farmers and textile workers by picking holes in the trade deal with the US.
At the same time, he also mounted a foreign policy attack at the government, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of allegedly bartering away India’s sovereignty.
These were perhaps the same allegations that the BJP had levelled against the previous Congress-led UPA government for signing the India-US nuclear deal. Participating in the motion of confidence debate in the Lok Sabha in July 2008 – which came after the Left parties withdrew support to the government to protest against this move – the then LoP L K Advani had said, “We have not said that we will scrap it. We said that we will renegotiate this deal to make it a treaty between equals so that there are no constraints on our strategic options and no constraint on our strategic autonomy.”
On Wednesday, Gandhi said had an INDIA alliance government negotiated the trade deal with the US, it would have told Washington that it should talk to New Delhi as an “equal”. He said the alliance government would have told the US that “you are not going to talk to us as if we are your servants”. His remarks were in the context of the US stipulating that India should stop buying Russian oil.
Advani had made similar remarks: “My charge is that this particular deal makes us a subservient partner in the deal.”
Appeal to farmers
Gandhi said New Delhi should have told Washington in no uncertain terms that “Our energy security is our energy security. And no matter what happens we are going to protect our energy security. We understand you have a voter base, agricultural voter base, we understand that you need to protect your farmers. But we will also protect our farmers,” reminding the government that an INDIA bloc government would have ensured that “we would go there as equals…We would not be made equal to Pakistan.”
Gandhi also attacked the government over data and digital trade terms in the deal. “Data is our most valuable asset…the thing that is going to transform us in the 21st century, make us a super power. We gave up control over our digital trade rules. There is no deal for data localisation, free data flow to the US, limit on digital tax, no need to disclose any source code, and 20-year free tax holiday,” he said.
“What have you done on tariffs, 3 per cent was the average, it has now gone up to 18 per cent. The US imports are to go up from 46 billion dollars to 146 billion dollars. They have no commitment to us. We are just standing there like fools. Their tariff has come down from 16 to zero. You cannot buy oil from say Russia or Iran. They will decide, our PM will not decide. They will monitor, they will keep a watch,” he said.
Arguing that Indian farmers are facing a storm, he said, “You have opened the door to mechanised American farms to crush our poor farmers. No PM has ever done this before and no PM after you is going to do it,” he said.
‘Compromised’ PM
Last week, Gandhi had alleged that there was tremendous pressure on Modi. Asked what the pressure was, the LoP had told reporters: “There is a bribery case against Adani in the US. That is not targeting Adani, but it is targeting Modi’s financial structure. The second is the Epstein files. Epstein files main abhi aur maal hai .. Woh abhi release nahin hua hai (There is more matter in the Epstein files, that has also not come out). So because of this pressure, the entire country wants to know what is in the Epstein files that were not released completely. These are the two pressure points. The country should understand that the Prime Minister is compromised.”
On Wednesday, he told the Lok Sabha, “I do not believe that any Indian PM including Mr Modi would sign such a deal unless there was a chokehold on him. We have buckled on tariffs, handed out our data..farmers have been left at the mercy of mechanised massive American farms, our textiles have been wiped out, our energy security has been handed over, we can’t buy oil from who we want to buy. Logic hi nahin hai. I don’t think any Indian PM would do this.”
Advani had made a similar charge in October 2007, while commenting on the Indo-US nuclear deal. “Our view has been that it is a deal between unequals, in which India would have to accept a subservient status vis-à-vis America by surrendering its sovereignty and self-reliance in strategic security matters,” he had then said.