PM can’t bury reality in nationalism’s garb: Congress

Ahmedabad, March 12 (IANS) The Congress on Tuesday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "cynically exploiting national security to hide his colossal failures" and resolved at its CWC meet here to defeat the "RSS and BJP's ideology of fascism, hatred and divisiveness", saying it would not let Modi divert the country from real issues in the guise of nationalism.

The meeting of the Congress Working Committee, the party's highest decision-making body held in Modi's home state Gujarat for the first time in 60 years, was attended by top party leaders including President Rahul Gandhi, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and newly appointed General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi among others.

"The CWC resolved to defeat the RSS, BJP ideology of fascism, hatred, anger and divisiveness. No sacrifice is too great in this endeavour, no effort too little, this battle will be won," the party stated.

"It is sad to say that our Prime Minister, in a cynical manner, is taking advantage of the emotions and sentiments of the public to gain political mileage in the backdrop of terror attacks. He is also creating a divide in the society. This is an attempt by Narendra Modi and the BJP to divert the public attention from accountability and real public issues.

"We want to remind the government about the poll promises made during the election rallies in 2014," said spokesman Anand Sharma after the meeting.

"The Prime Minister has betrayed the public and he has failed. We will not allow the PM to mislead and fool the people of India," added Sharma.

In its political resolution, the CWC said that Modi and the BJP were insulting the sacrifices and contribution in nation-building by leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel by "brazenly seeking to hijack their legacy".

"Congress expresses its strong disappointment that the Prime Minister is cynically exploiting the issue of national security, on which we are all united, to divert attention from his colossal failures, bogus claims and persistent falsehoods," it said.

The Congress said the five years of Modi-BJP government had been a period of false promises and betrayal of people's trust.

"This government has been a failure on all fronts and has inflicted pain and misery on the people through its reckless decisions of demonetization and hasty imposition of a flawed GST," it said.

It said demonetization and GST disrupted the economy, trade and industry, led to closure of lakhs of factories and tens of millions of workers lost their jobs and livelihood.

"The unprecedented joblessness, agrarian crisis and distress of farmers and agricultural laborers are issues of grave national concern. The Modi government is guilty of monumental mismanagement of the Indian economy. National savings and investments have sharply declined.

"Banks are burdened with NPAs and credit off-take of the industry has reached a record low. Exports are stagnant and industrial production has been falling continuously notwithstanding government's boastful and misleading claims," it said.

"The Prime Minister has betrayed the public and he has failed. We will not allow the PM to mislead and fool the people of India. The Indian public has repeatedly shown the maturity and are alert about public issues and problems," added Sharma.

"Despite the country experiencing two famines during the period of five decades, there never was such a situation which is prevailing right now with the unemployment at its lowest in 45 years.

"The BJP government is also destroying the democratic institutions," said Sharma.

"After the public mandate given to us, which we firmly believe will happen in the general elections, we will give the nation a government which will fulfill its promises. the country saw that happened during the three Assembly Elections held recently," said Sharma.

"We have prepared a road map to address the issues of farmers, unemployment the sliding economy," said Sharma.

The CWC endorsed the promise made by the Congress President to ensure minimum income support to the poor, weak and marginalised sections when the Congress comes to power.

Anand Sharma said an atmosphere of fear and insecurity was all pervasive particularly among women, students, academics, writers and the business community.

"There are deliberate attacks on the Constitutional and other safeguards for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs and minorities; and there is subversion of all institutions of governance," he said.

Sharma also blamed Modi and the BJP for political discourse becoming bitter.