Rahul Gandhi criticises PM Modi over 'reels culture, says attempt to distract youth

Patna, Nov 4 (IANS) Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Tuesday launched an attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that the Centre is trying to distract the youth by promoting short-video content instead of providing employment opportunities.

Addressing a massive Mahagathbandhan rally in Aurangabad, Rahul Gandhi said, “Narendra Modi comes to Bihar and says data is so cheap that you can watch videos, make reels and use various social media platforms. I want to ask you -- do you want to make reels or do you want jobs? Data may be cheap, but who is getting financial benefit from it? His industrialist friends. Every reel you make, the money goes into their pockets. The idea is to keep you busy in reels so that you don’t raise real questions of jobs, unemployment, paper leaks, education, health or universities.”

He further alleged that making youngsters addicted to reels was like giving them a new form of intoxication.

Rahul Gandhi also cited the condition of health infrastructure and claimed that a large number of patients from Bihar travel to Delhi for treatment.

“Every day, two to three thousand people sleep on the pavement near AIIMS Delhi. When I ask where they have come from, they say: Bihar. Patients don’t go to Bihar hospitals for treatment; they go there to die,” he said.

Targeting the Centre over the Agniveer scheme, he said the government has shut one major avenue of jobs for youth who trained for Army recruitment.

“After four years, Agniveers will be forced out. If they are killed, they will not even get martyr status. Their families will not get support. Earlier, youth from Dalit, Mahadalit, EBC, OBC and other communities got jobs in HAL, BHEL, Indian Oil and other PSUs - but PM Modi privatised them and handed them to his industrialist friends,” LoP Rahul Gandhi said.

He also accused the government of destroying the value of education by allowing paper leaks.

“You can study for years, but it becomes meaningless because the paper leaks one or two days before the exam. If you don’t have contacts or lakhs of rupees in your pocket, you won’t succeed,” he said.

Referring to PM Modi’s recent Chhath appearance in Delhi, LoP Rahul Gandhi mocked it as “drama.”

“PM Modi said he would take a bath in the Yamuna, but a clean water pipe was arranged for him. A special pond was created. When the video leaked, he quietly backed out,” he said.

LoP Rahul Gandhi also alleged that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has reduced Bihar’s youth to labourers.

“I go to every state -- Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Arunachal Pradesh, even Ladakh -- and everywhere I meet young people from Bihar working as labourers. Nitish Kumar has ruled Bihar for 20 years. He has turned Bihar’s youth into labour.”

Recalling Bihar’s ancient academic legacy, he said: “Once, Nalanda University was the finest seat of learning in the world. Students from Japan, Korea, China and England would come here to study. Today, our students are forced to go abroad -- to the USA, England, Japan, China, Korea, and even Uzbekistan. This is Bihar’s history, but your government does not want to help you.”

LoP Rahul Gandhi further claimed that Nitish Kumar is not running the government independently.

“Nitish Kumar is not in control. The remote is in the Prime Minister’s hands. Whatever PM Modi wants, Nitish Kumar does,” he said.

He added that if the Grand Alliance forms the government, it will represent all sections.

“Our government will belong to Dalits, minorities, EBCs, OBCs and poor people from the general category,” he said.

The Congress leader also alleged that the NDA’s only path to victory was vote theft.

“Narendra Modi and Amit Shah know they cannot win in Bihar. Their only way is to vote chori. They stole Maharashtra, Haryana, the Lok Sabha -- and now they want to steal Bihar. But people of Bihar are intelligent. They knew that the vote theft was an attack on the Constitution that B.R. Ambedkar wrote. If the Constitution is finished, only Narendra Modi and his industrialist friends will remain,” Gandhi said.

He also questioned loan write-offs to corporates.

“Billions of rupees were waived for industrialists. Have they waived loans of Bihar’s farmers?” he asked.

LoP Rahul Gandhi ended his speech with a “guarantee”:

“I will build a world-class university in Bihar, where students from around the globe will come to study. This is my vision for Bihar,” he said.

--IANS

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