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‘Modi friends with Trump, but enemy of nation’: Mallikarjun Kharge on US tariff tension
Kharge also taunted Modi over the realignment of relations with China after the US tariff pressure
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said on Sunday that he won't give it much credance that US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have professed a mutual and lasting friendship. He said PM Modi has become "an enemy of the nation" by “spoiling the atmosphere” .
Addressing reporters in Kalaburagi, the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said Modi and Trump could be good to each other “because they sought votes for one another”. The Modi-Trump alliance had come at India's cost, he alleged.
“Trump and Modi can be friends, but Modi has become an enemy of the nation. He spoiled the atmosphere… Trump imposed a huge tariff. After a 50 per cent tariff, he destroyed our people,” he said.
The nation comes first and your friendship is secondary," he added, as per PTI.
He said Modi “needs to realise” that India has a foreign policy rooted in neutrality for decades, “and it should continue on that path”.
Kharge also spoke on the revised GST rates, saying the Congress would welcome “any step that benefits the poor”.
"We raised this issue eight years ago. We said that if there were two slabs, that would benefit poor people, but they introduced four to five slabs and looted people. After the elections approached, they found some difficulties and revised the GST slabs," he claimed.
Kharge also taunted Modi over a realignment of relations with China after the US tariff pressure. Referring to Modi's earlier statement that "no one entered Indian territory" when asked about reports of Chinese incursion, Kharge said “now Modi himself entered there in China”.
"We are one when it comes to the country. There is no doubt. But it doesn't mean that since we are supporting you, you should do anything arbitrarily. We don't believe in this," he said.
Also, Kharge listed issues that the Congress plans to highlight in the upcoming elections in Bihar. "Unemployment, law and order, sexual assault on women... Dalits and backward classes are not getting scholarships, and farmers are not getting fertilisers. 'Vote theft' issue is also our main agenda," the Congress president said.
