india

Updated: Jan 25, 2019 23:38 IST

Priyanka Gandhi’s entry into politics was “a decision taken long ago”, her brother and Congress president Rahul Gandhi said at a meeting in Bhubaneswar on Friday.

The comments come two days after the party announced that Priyanka, the younger sibling, was appointed the general secretary in-charge of UP East, a political entry that had long been a subject of much speculation.

“I have been reading in media that this decision was taken 10 days ago. Actually this was taken long ago. I have been discussing with my sister about her joining politics. Her pushback to me was that her children were young and she needed to spend time with them,” he said at a town hall-style meeting organised by Odia daily Samaj.

Now, he added, “her children are grown-ups. Therefore, she decided to join politics”.

Gandhi gave more details about his bond with Priyanka. “We have been through hell together. Everyone thinks we come from an illustrious family and everything is so easy for us. It’s actually not easy,” the Congress president said.

“My grandmother and father were assassinated. We have been through a hard battle. That has brought us very close together,” he added.

The two are often on the same page on issues, Gandhi added. “Our way of operating is we give each other space. There is a give-and-take relationship between us.”

The Congress president, who was on his first visit to Odisha since taking control of his party, criticised the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

“There is massive centralisation of power. Institutions are being destroyed,” he said, pointing to instances such as the press conference by four top Supreme Court judges a year ago. He also accused Modi of “destroying” the previous Congress government’s rural employment scheme National Rural Employment Guarantee act (NREGA).

“NREGA was not a handout for poor. It was an attempt to revive rural workforce. It created an economic structure in rural India. It helped a large number of manufacturers. It was a labour market correction. Modi is destroying NREGA,” he said.

He accused Patnaik of believing in “bureaucratic dictatorship”. “In Odisha, we are fighting a version of Mr Modi who tacitly supports all the decisions of the BJP. Mr Modi has leverage on Patnaik because of the latter’s corruption. The Gujarat and Odisha model run on the same lines,” he added.

Gandhi also repeated his attacks on Modi and Patnaik at a public gathering at Tamando in Bhubaneswar.

“Congress will waive off farm loans within 10 days if voted to power in Odisha. We will hike the paddy MSP (minimum support price) to Rs 2,600 per quintal and set up food processing plants in each districts of Odisha for the benefit of farmers,” he said.

Senior BJP leader and Union minister for petroleum and natural gas, Dharmendra Pradhan accused Gandhi of “trying to fool the people of Odisha”. “Rahul Gandhi is big liar. They had promised loan waivers in Punjab, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan but what they did is for everyone to know,” said Pradhan.

BJD MP Kalikesh Singhdeo said Odisha was doing better under BJD than it had under Congress.

“Under Congress rule, Odisha was dependent on rice from other states for its needs. Under BJD government we not only reached self-sufficiency in rice production by 2007, we became rice-surplus in 2011 and are now the third highest contributor of rice to the PDS system,” he said.