india

Updated: Dec 14, 2019 17:18 IST

The new citizenship act would ‘shred the soul of India’, Congress’ interim president Sonia Gandhi said on Saturday as she joined her party’s leaders in hitting out at the Centre over issues from the sluggish economy to attacks on the Constitution.

Addressing a massive Bharat Bachao rally of her party in Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, Sonia Gandhi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah did not care much.

“Modi-Shah are not bothered at all that the citizenship amendment act will shred the soul of India, just like it is happening in Assam and other states of the northeast,” she said.

“There is an atmosphere of ‘andher nagri chaupat raja’ in the country and the entire nation asking where is ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas’,” she added.

Their only agenda, the Congress leaders, said is to hide real issues and make people fight. “They violate the Constitution every day and then also celebrate Constitution Day,” she said.

The 73-year-old leader also hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for revoking Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir to bifurcate the state into two Union territories.

“Today the atmosphere is such that whenever (the government) feels like it, they impose an article, revoke an article, change the status of a state.”

Sonia Gandhi also hinted at the recent Maharashtra political crisis, saying “whenever they feel like it, they revoke the President’s Rule and pass bills without debate.

The senior Congress leader said that its time for people to step up.

“There always comes a time when an individual, society or a country has to make a choice to stand either this way or that. Today, the time has come to save our country and we have to struggle hard for it,” Sonia Gandhi said.

“Tell the government we are ready for sacrifice… The Congress will not step behind in its fight against injustice. We will fulfil our duty towards the country, democracy and Constitution till our last breath,” she said in her short speech.

Before her, Congress general secretary and her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra pulled up the BJP for a high rate of unemployment and rising prices of onion.

Priyanka Gandhi used the ruling party’s ‘BJP hai toh mumkin hai’ slogan to drive her point home.

“You can see ‘Modi hai to mumkin hai’ at every bus stop, every newspaper. But the reality is that if the BJP is there, it is possible to get onions at Rs 100 a kilo, if there is the BJP it is possible for unemployment to climb to its highest figure in 45 years if there is the BJP it is possible for four crore jobs to be destroyed,” she said.

“We have to save the economy,” she said citing the economic slowdown, plummeting GDP and rising inflation.

Like her mother, she also criticised the government for the new citizenship act that allows fast-tracking of Indian citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Sonia Gandhi’s son and the Wayanad lawmaker Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “single-handedly” destroying the economy and picked up the demonetisation move three years ago to say that the country never recovered from it.

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh and other senior leaders were also present at the rally as the grand old party has stepped up its attack on the government on a range of issues, including the state of the economy, the citizenship act, agrarian distress and unemployment.

Workers from the Congress’ state unit in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana among others gathered at Ramlila Maidan in the party’s show of strength.