Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said that the grand old party intends to remove the Draconian powers of Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) from North-East.
“Should the military be allowed to arrest anybody? I don’t think so. There are law and order concerns all across country and we have to sensitive towards them. I believe in allowing expression and listening to people. When we were in power here, we reduced the impact of AFSPA; we removed it from 7 constituencies. It is our intention to remove the Draconian powers of AFSPA,” Gandhi said in a conversation with students at Manipur State Film Development Society Auditorium in a programme named ‘Dialogue for Democracy.’
Mentioned below are highlights from his conversation:
- The fact that the Indian education system is becoming more expensive is hugely to do with the fact that the Central govt is not spending enough money on education. We are committed to increase it to 6% of GDP
- The Modi government has drastically reduced the amount of money they’re spending on University and college education. In last 5 years they’ve only opened 1 central University. In a similar time, we had opened multiple
- Congress does not believe in cultural imperialism. We do not believe in the idea that one part should rule other parts of the country. We believe that every part of the country should be allowed to say and do what it wants
- There’s an inferiority complex in BJP and RSS. They are actually scared of other cultures. There’s a fight going on in India today with the hatred that is being spread
- BJP is not only attacking the statistical system, they are attacking every institution. Tremendous damage is done to the North-East because the Modi govt has taken away the Special Status category
- They are also attacking the central foundation of the government. The head of the RBI resigned, PM Modi bypassed RBI and carried out disastrous demonetisation that wiped out 2% of our GDP
- There’s no thinking behind demonetisation, it’s pure mediocrity. Mr. Modi does not have an understanding on what economics is
- Modi is causing tremendous damage to the country. 4 crore 70 lakh jobs have been lost in the last 5 years, whereas, he promised 2 crore jobs
- Nobody actually knows whether the Prime Minister went to university or not. There’s an RTI in Delhi asking for PM Modi’s degree, it has not been responded to
- When PM Modi carried out demonetisation, he locked up his entire cabinet and they did not even know that the PM was going to demonetise India’s currency
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- We have to tackle the job crisis in India and North East. We have to significantly increase the amount of money we are spending in connecting the North East to the rest of the country
- I like the idea of ‘Look East’, where we connect North East to the rest of Asia on eastern side
- I view North East as a potential manufacturing hub in the eastern part of the country
- We need to make sure that our farmers produce are being processed. We will set up food processing units
- Modi govt did not give you Special Status, but they can give ₹35,000 crore to Nirav Modi. How many jobs has he created? We would like to open the doors of Indian banking system to the entrepreneurs of North East
- We will never let anybody to impose on your way of life, this is non-negotiable. We cannot talk about development of the North East and not talk about their culture and languages
- UPA govt decided to buy Rafale aircrafts based on Airforce’s requirements. We negotiated lowest price possible & ensured that it was made in India. Mr. Modi changed the deal and increased the price from ₹526 crore to ₹1600 crore
- Modi said he wanted to be ‘Chowkidar’, but, who is he actually serving? Not the people but Anil Ambani, to whom he gave the Rafale deal
- We fought against the Citizenship Amendment Bill in Parliament and defeated it. We are absolutely clear that there will be no encroachment on North East. We will fight tooth and nail to ensure CAB does not become a law
- RTI, where you allow people to ask bureaucracy any question, was a landmark law. Power is being centralised to PM’s office today, we would like to delegate it to people so that they can participate in the system
- Basic idea behind GST is one tax, simple tax, minimum tax. Mr. Modi has sold the country something which isn’t GST- it is #GabbarSinghTax
- India has a job crisis and PM Modi is not even accepting it
- What Mr. Modi really lacks is the ability to listen
- Hatred will not get you anything in life. Love, affection and humility will. I understand that you fear your future and we are all working together to fix that problem. You must not convert that fear to hatred