New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said he does not listen to Prime Minister Narendra Modi because he was not afraid of him or "his enforcement agencies". Gandhi was responding to PM Modi's interview aired on Wednesday.
"In an interview yesterday, Modiji said ‘Rahul doesn't listen'. Did you understand what he meant? It meant that pressure by the Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation doesn't work on Rahul and he does not back down. Why should I listen to him," Rahul Gandhi said at a public rally in Uttarakhand.
While speaking to news agency ANI, PM Modi, referring to Rahul Gandhi, had said that he cannot reply to a "person who does not listen and does not sit in the House".
When asked about Rahul Gandhi's questions on unemployment and the India-China issue, PM Modi had said, "I have given facts on every subject and spoken on every subject on the basis of facts. On some subjects, our external affairs ministry and defence ministry have given detailed answers and wherever it was necessary, I had also spoken. How do I reply to a person who does not listen, and does not sit in the House?"
Rahul Gandhi, who is in Uttarakhand, campaigning for the upcoming polls, said the BJP changed its chief ministers in the state as they were all corrupt and "replaced one thief with another".
"When in power, we'll give employment to four lakh people and LPG cylinder will be provided for less than Rs 500. More than five lakh poor families of the state will be given Rs 40,000 per year under our 'Nyay scheme' to eliminate poverty in the state," Gandhi said.
Reiterating his speech in Parliament, Rahul Gandhi said, "In my Lok Sabha speech, I talked about two Indias that PM Modi is making. One India belongs to the industrialists and the other India belongs to the poor, the unemployment. In first India, you can get anything if you are an industrialist. In my speech, I also talked about China."
"Then PM Modi gave a long speech in which he said wrong things about the Congress, about me which he generally does. Then yesterday he gave another interview. Have you watched that? I don't know," Rahul Gandhi added.
"Narendra Modi blames us for arranging for buses for migrants. That was not our job. We were not in the power. Narendra Modi ji does not do his own work and then blames us. You could not prove employment to people. In fact, you rendered people jobless," Rahul Gandhi said.
The assembly election in Uttarakhand will be held on February 14, 2022, and the results will be announced on March 10.
In the 2017 Uttarakhand Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 56 out of the total 70 seats. The Congress party had managed to bag 11 seats.