Caste hierarchy, religious divide are BJP's objectives: Rahul

Kurnool (Andhra Pradesh), Oct 19 (IANS) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged that the BJP has the objectives of maintaining caste hierarchy, ensuring that women remain subservient to men and dividing India along regional lines.

The Congress MP was interacting with mediapersons at Adoni in Kurnool district during his Bharat Jodo Yatra.

He alleged that Congress has got two-three objectives. "It's first objective is to maintain caste hierarchy and eventually kill the Constitution, second make sure women are always subservient to Indian men and third is to divide India along regional lines," he said.

Rahul claimed that the views of Congress are diametrically opposed to BJP's objectives. "We want to protect the Constitution. We want to protect the rights of women and we bring communities and religions together. That is what Bharat Jodo Yatra is aimed at and it is doing this successfully," he said.

The Congress leader said people had started asking what is the need for violence hatred, why should we hate each other and why should we kill each other. These questions are being asked as a result of Yatra, he said.

Alleging that the hatred and violence being spread in India and the country is being divided, he said that the Yatra's aim is to unite the country again and to stand up to the violence.

"We are getting an opportunity to connect with people through Yatra. We are learning a lot," he said while evading a direct reply on why Congress was losing elections.

Rahul Gandhi claimed that the Congress party represents every single Indian person. "It does not discriminate between caste, community, religion and state. It is everybody's party. We defend the rights of poor people, rights of farmers, labourers, medium businesses and we want to bring harmony to the nation. Unlike most parties, Congress listens to people and has free and fair elections inside it. It has a culture of listening and carrying people along. Have ever heard of anybody publicly dissenting in BJP. Can you dissent in the YSR Congress or TDP. Dissent is not tolerated. These are dictatorships. Congress party is the only democratic and open minded party in the country," he said.

Replying to another query, he alleged that BJP's policies completely destroyed the strengths of the Indian economy. "Job creation in our economy has always happened on the back of small and medium business and a strong agriculture sector. Demonetisation and GST have destroyed both the systems. For the first time in their lives, farmers are paying GST on farming inputs. Ask any small business, they will tell you about devastation. Lakhs of small businesses have gone out of business and this has crippled job creation," he said.

The Congress MP also alleged that during the BJP rule there has been massive transfer of wealth from poor and middle class to a handful of rich people. "Third richest person in the world is an Indian. He is a close associate of the Prime Minister, a friend of the Prime Minister. Everybody knows how he became third richest. These people have access to the entire banking system while farmers can't access it. These people can have unlimited debt. The entire economy is crippled. Lot of work has to be done to bring the economy back to life," he said.

"The idea whether a strong or weak rupee is good or bad has more nuances. There are advantages of a strong rupee and there are disadvantages. Both those have to be taken into account," he said when asked about the falling value of Indian rupee against the dollar.

Rahul said the Congress party's idea of GST was one unifying tax. He claimed that their vision of GST was a tax that would develop out of a conversation with the states.

"The BJP imposed GST without a conversation with states. They have forced the GST. They have five different levels of GST. It is not there anywhere in the world. We are against the basic design of GST. We will bring GST, one simple tax after conversation with stakeholders. We are confident we can give a GST that will actually simplify people's lives," he said.