'Jay's firm rose from ashes of GST, note ban'

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday called the demonetisation announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year a move to help hoarders of black money to convert it to white money by imposing his "unilateral and whimsical" decision on the country.

Rahul said this at a public function in Limkheda town of Central Gujarat, where he was on a three-day visit to the region. “Modiji realized the ordinary people and small businessmen had not been completely crushed by note ban, so he brought GST," he said.

On GST, he said that though his party had requested PM to go slow and simplify the tax structure, “he and (Arun) Jaitleyji said no. They won’t listen.”

He then went on to take a dig at BJP chief Amit Shah by quoting media reports about Jay Shah’s company’s turnover rising 16,000 times from Rs 50,000 to Rs 80 crore in just a few months time "when the entire country was set on fire by the twin blows, a new company rose from this fire," he said.

Rahul, who had a similar three-day outing in Saurashtra region covering 26 of 52 Assembly seats there in end September, on Wednesday held several meetings and interactions with various sections of the society. Rahul received a relatively better response during his tour of Central Gujarat compared to Saurashtra where too he had a fairly successful trip by Congress standards in the state over last two decades.

Meanwhile, ruling BJP continued to try and stoke the fire on the statement made by Rahul Gandhi with regards to the participation of women in saffron party’s ideological parent RSS. Several protests were organised across the state, including Rajkot and Kutch. BJP workers, especially women, were seen carrying placards ‘Rahul Gandhi shame’, ‘Rahul Gandhi ask for forgiveness’ and ‘Rahul Gandhi respect women’ from various parts of the state. In Rajkot, wife of chief minister Vijay Rupani too joined in the protest where Rahul’s cut out was made to wear traditional women attire and beaten up with chappals. At some places, effigies of Rahul were also burnt by BJP workers.

Rahul had at one of his public functions said that women are not allowed to play a leadership role in saffron organisations, including RSS. “Have you seen women at their shakas? Have I not? Have you seen women in shorts at their shakhas? I surely have not?..” he had said.

Rahul, who wrapped up the aggressive second leg of his three-day tour in the state on Wednesday, is now expected to be back in the state for a similar three-day tour of South Gujarat region after Diwali break. In the meantime, he has asked Congress rank and file to fan out across the state over coming days and hold public interactions and meetings in large numbers, posting pictures and videos of these events on social media extensively.