Grabbing hold of veteran BJP leader Yashwant Sinha's critical remarks against the Centre over the state of the economy, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today (27 September) accused the Narendra Modi government of ignoring the plight of the masses while extending favours to a select few.

In his article titled 'I need to speak up now', the former Union finance minister, who has been sidelined in the party, wrote, "I shall be failing in my national duty if I did not speak up even now against the mess the finance minister (Arun Jaitley) has made of the economy". He even claimed that people in the BJP are not raising their voices "out of fear".

Addressing a small gathering near Chotila in Surendranagar district, Gandhi cited the article to attack Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

"Today, I read an article written by Yashwant Sinha, who is a senior BJP leader. He wrote that Modiji and Jaitleyji have destroyed the Indian economy. This is not my view. This is the opinion of a BJP leader," Gandhi said on the third and last day of his campaign tour of poll-bound Gujarat, Modi's home state. "He even wrote that though BJP leaders know that our country is in deep trouble, no one is ready to speak up as they are afraid of Modiji," the Congress vice president said.

Gandhi claimed that the country's economy is in shambles because the BJP government does not listen to the common man. "This has happened because the BJP government never listens to farmers, youngsters, labourers, traders and women, who actually run this country. People from BJP listen only to businessmen and then tell the citizens their own 'mann ki baat'," Gandhi alleged, taking a jibe at the PM's radio programme. PTI