Rajasthan govt hasn't given any preferential treatment to Adani: Rahul Gandhi

A day after the BJP taunted Rahul Gandhi and the Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot for inviting industrialist Gautam Adani – whom Gandhi often targets as a favourite of the Modi regime – to the Jaipur investment summit, the Congress leader said on Saturday that he “is not against businesses or corporates” but only against monopolisation of wealth.

Gandhi also defended the Gehlot government’s decision, saying the Congress state government had not given Adani group any preferential treatment to get the Rs 60,000 crore investment commitment and that no CM should have rejected any such commitment.

“Let me make it clear, I am in no way against the corporates and businesses. I am against the complete monopolisation of businesses as that weakens the country. And today what we are seeing is a complete monopolisation of all businesses. And that’s my problem,” Gandhi said at a press conference here.


He was responding to questions on how his persistent criticism of Adani and the Congress government of Rajasthan inviting the same industrialist to the investment summit could go hand in hand. “My contention is in the use of political power to help certain chosen businesses. My opposition is to two or three or four large businesses being helped politically to monopolise every single business in this country. That is where my opposition is,” said Gandhi.

NO REMOTE CONTROL
Gandhi also disagreed with the narrative that the imminent nonGandhi president of the Congress could be remote controlled by the Gandhi family. “Both the people who are standing in the polls (Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor) have a position, have a perspective and are people of stature and people of understanding. I don’t think either of them is going to be a remote control and frankly, this tone (remote control) is insulting to both of them,” he said.

KARNATAKA LEADERSHIP TUSSLE
On factional tussle (involving DK Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah) within the Karnataka Congress, Gandhi said, “As far as our party is concerned, we are not a fascist party. We are a party that believes in conversations, we are a party that believes in discussions and we are perfectly happy to have different viewpoints in the party.”