Team News Riveting
New Delhi, August 24
Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday lashed out at the Central government over the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) (NMP) plan and charged that the BJP-led government was selling all assets created in the last 70 years to the Prime Minister’s “industrialist friends”.
“The Narendra Modi-led government is in the process of selling India’s crown jewels built by previous governments with public money over 70 years,” Gandhi said while addressing a press conference. Senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram was also present.
The NDA government on Monday unveiled the NMP worth Rs 6 lakh crore that included unlocking value by involving private companies across infrastructure sectors — from passenger trains and railway stations to airports, roads, and stadiums.
The Congress has described the government’s infrastructure monetisation plan as “legalised loot and organised plunder”, alleging that invaluable public assets created over decades are being handed over to a chosen few. It further alleged that the government is giving away assets worth crores made from the hard work of the people to its billionaire “friends”.
The Narendra Modi-led government wants to benefit its few industrialist friends through the National Monetisation Pipeline, Rahu Gandhi said, adding that PM Modi has snatched away employment from the youth and reduced the power of farmers by introducing three laws farm laws.
The Congress leader mentioned a number of government assets that he claimed the Centre was 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 and we consider Railways as strategic industry because it transports lakhs of crores of people and also employs lots of people,” Rahul Gandhi said, adding, “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.”
