RaGa: The attention grabber
Though, many-a-times he is found as the most uninterested person sitting in the parliament with head resting position, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi (RaGa) is able to pull out attention of everyone when he starts speaking.
Mr. Gandhi began his speech at the Lok Sabha on Thursday with an attack on PM Narendra Modi for his inability to contain price rise of basic necessities. As he spoke at length on the issue of inflation in the country, his party members sat on the edge of their seats, praying perhaps that the Congress leader does not end up causing another embarrassment for the party.
The Congress vice-president was recently caught napping in Lok Sabha as the house discussed the crucial topic of Dalit attacks in Gujarat. The incident brought out the best of humour among social media users as they trolled him. Gandhi’s presence in the Parliament has often resulted in the internet troll community being spurred to hit out again at their favourite punching boy.
In his speech on rising prices, replete with jibes at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his policies, Rahul Gandhi today also took a dig at BJP lawmaker Poonam Mahajan, who sat right opposite the Congress vice president in the government benches of the Lok Sabha.
“When someone goes to the market…well you wouldn’t be going to the market, someone else would do that for you,” Mr Gandhi said to Ms Mahajan, 35, the MP from Mumbai North Central and the daughter of former union minister and BJP leader Pramod Mahajan.
While the ruling party largely made an effort not to disrupt the Congress leader’s speech, some lawmakers were moved to ask when Mr Gandhi, 46, a member of the Congress’ first family the Gandhis had last been to the market.
When asked if he knew what the prices of goods were in the market, Mr Gandhi reeled off a rate list for pulses and vegetables, alleging 300 per cent inflation in the cost of some. “There is a new slogan doing the rounds, Arhar Modi, Arhar Modi, Arhar Modi,” he said, referring to pulses or dal, the prices of which have spiralled in recent months.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who took notes as Mr Gandhi spoke, in his reply to the debate made a strong counter to the Congress leader’s attack on the Prime Minister and the government, pointing out that the previous Congress-led UPA government had “left double digit inflation. And now you have a government that is taking a step by step approach to fix everything.”
The government, Mr Jaitley said, was making a lot of efforts in the rural sector and that he was “confident that the high prices of dal is being looked into seriously, and will be taken care of in the time to come.”
With a smile he also referred to Mr Gandhi’s comment about Ms Mahajan, when he said, “Everyone is claiming to go to the market every day.
Internal sources, on the condition of anonymity, say that once the popular election campaign manager Prashant Kishore asked RaGa to change his mannerisms including head support (which is a clear sign of boredom) while being seated in parliament as well as other events. This was as part of re-launching him.
However, Rahul Gandhi has made some noticeable speeches in the House over the past few years: Here are excerpts of some his the speeches in the Lok Sabha that have managed to garner nationwide attention.
Fair and lovely yojana
In March this year, Gandhi made headlines with his speech at the Lok Sabha where he criticised the government over a range of issues including black money and the suicide of Rohith Vermula. A part of his speech that was special favourite among viewers and social media users was when he referred to PM Modi’s policy on black money being a ‘fair and lovely’ scheme.
He went on to criticise the government on their inability to create sufficient jobs with the following
Make in India ka babbar sher taiyyar kia. Jahan dekho babbar sher, main puchhta hoon aapne kitne logon ko rozgaar kia? (PM Modi created make in India Babbar sher (lion), but how many jobs did he create?)
He further condemned the centre for the clampdown on the JNU students and for religious radicalism.
Cheatsheet for Parliament speech
In August 2015, Twitteratti had a particularly fun day as they took digs on Rahul Gandhi’s speech at Lok Sabha on the debate surrounding Lalit Modi. However this time, it was not his verbal word that made news, but rather his written word. A photograph published by Telegraph showed Gandhi’s speech as written down by him. While it is not uncommon for politicians to write down their speeches, what was special about Gandhi’s speech was that his speech that was communicated in Hindi, was written down in the Roman script.
“Log PM Modi ko sunna chahte hai, woh unki rai janna chahte hai, Modigate par, Vyapam par.Logon ko Modi ji ki jagah Maun Modi dikh raha hai”.
Suit boot ki sarkaar
Rahul Gandhi made a come-back after disappearing for about two months with a speech in the Lok Sabha that severely attacked the Modi government for their inability to tackle with the issue of poverty. Even though he was interrupted by BJP members on numerous occasions, his 20-minute speech was talk of the country for a while.
“Let me give the PM an advice. Why doesn’t he go and see for himself how much damage the farmers are facing? Wherever people are in pain, people are in difficulties, why doesn’t he go there and speak to them? The wheat stock is lying in the markets because the government is not taking it…you are kicking the farmers away whenever they are asking for fertilisers,”
He went on to take a dig at the PM’s suit that he wore during his visit to the US when he said
“Yeh to suit-boot ki sarkar hai (This is a government of the suit and boot),” he said, adding, “Chalo, suit ki baat khatam ho gayi hai (The talk about suit is over). You auctioned it. I will not speak about it now. Happy?
Rahul Gandhi might not be the best person when it comes to delivering political speeches, but for sure, his speeches never go unnoticed. Even if he is caught “sleeping” during the session, he definitely manages to wake up everyone the moment he decides to speak.
