India doesn't have a PM but a king: Rahul Gandhi

Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said India does not have a prime minister today but a king who believes that people should keep quiet when he takes a decision.

Addressing a rally, 'Uttarakhandi Kisan Swabhiman Samvad', in Kichha here, Gandhi also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of leaving farmers on roads for a year amid a raging COVID-19 pandemic and said the Congress will never do that.

He said his party will never shut its doors on farmers, labourers or the poor and it wants a partnership with them.

''If a prime minister does not work for all he cannot be a PM. By that token, Narendra Modi is not a PM,'' Gandhi said.

''India does not have a PM today. It has a king who believes that when the king takes a decision, everyone else should keep quiet,'' he said.

Targeting Modi over the year-long farmers' agitation against the Centre's agri laws, the former Congress president said the prime minister left farmers on the road amid the pandemic.

Asserting that his party will never treat farmers the way the Modi government did, Gandhi said, ''Congress will never shut its doors on farmers while it is in power. We want to work in partnership with farmers, the poor and labourers so that every section feels it is their government.'' He also congratulated the farmers for their rock-solid resistance against the three farm laws that forced the government to withdraw them. Thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh camped at Delhi's borders for over a year demanding the repeal of the Centre's three contentious farm laws.

They decided to suspend their protest, which began in November 2020, on December 9 last year after the government gave in to their demand and agreed to consider six others, including withdrawal of cases registered against farmers during the agitation, a legal guarantee on MSP and compensation for kin of farmers who died during the course of the protest.

Gandhi reiterated that there are two Indias today, one for the rich and one for the poor.

''A select group of around 100 people in the country have as much wealth as 40 per cent of the country's population. Such income disparity is not seen anywhere else,'' he said.

Industrialists did not fight the British, the farmers and labourers of the country did, he said.

Gandhi made the ''two Indias'' remark last week in Lok Sabha during the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address, drawing criticism from the ruling BJP.

Elections to the 70-member Uttarakhand Assembly will be held on February 14. The counting of votes will be taken up on March 10.