Interruption by the members of the ruling establishment was witnessed right from the beginning of his speech when he spoke about the prevalence of “an atmosphere of fear” that “pervaded every aspect of our country”. Who can deny this fact? However, it was objected by the treasury benches, more so when he said, “my friends in the BJP are terrified, the ministers are terrified, the farmers of India are terrified, workers, youngsters…”.

After interruption, he explained the anatomy of the trap that has perpetrated the atmosphere of fear enforcing the people to remain mute and suffer. He said the lotus trap (chakravyuh) has been laid by six people in the country and everything is in their control – He named the six – Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Mohan Bhagwat, Ajit Doval, Ambani, and Adani. They have entrapped India for subjugation, he said.

Rahul Gandhi said that they have captured India, and there are three forces behind it – first the idea of monopoly that two people should be allowed to own the entire Indian wealth for concentration of financial power. The second is institutional power the agencies – CBI, ED, and the Income Tax Department. And the third is the political executives. Indians are devastated under this trap, he said.

Expectation from the budget was to have some relief, but he said that it does just did the opposite. “It was to strengthen this framework … of big business, of monopoly business, of a political monopoly that destroys the democratic structure,” Rahul said. The cyclical trap has destroyed small and medium businesses who used to employ crores of youth through systemic attack such as demonetization, GST, and tax terrorism.

Rahul Gandhi said that officials telephone the traders and businesses perpetrating tax terror, but the budget has no work dot stop it. Small businesses were thus sabotaged while big ones were helped to grow. Today, youths of the country can’t get employment due to this reason.

The internship programme of the Budget is perhaps a joke on the unemployed youth. Internship would be allowed only in 500 big companies of the country, while 99 per cent of our youths have nothing to do with it. You have first broken the leg and then try to apply bandage. There is the trap of unemployment coupled with exam paper leaks. Papers were leaked 70 times in the last 10 years. There is no word on paper leak in the budget. Moreover, the budget has given lowest allocation in the last 20 years on education, which has gone down to just 2.5 per cent.

Youth are being trapped in several ways. Our jawans (defence personnels) are entrapped in Agniveer trap. Budget does not have any provision of pension for Agniveers. Targeting the ruling establishment, he said, you call yourselves patriot, but when it comes to give, you do not have any money in the budget for that.

Farmers, the providers of grains, have also been put under this trap. Government brought three black legislation, weakened the land acquisition act, and don’t give their rightful price. They wanted only one thing to walk out of your trap – the legal guarantee for MSP on their crops. Government stopped them at the border and roads are closed. When they came to meet me, they were not allowed to visit me in the parliament. However, I went to meet them to the gate. We expected that their demand would be met in the budget, but it was not done. We, INDIA block would meet their demand.

Budget has ditched the middle class too, he said. They followed PM’s diktat – sounded utensils during COVID, and lit their mobile phone. But they were stabbed on the back, they were stabbed on their chest. Indexation has been cancelled which was the stab on the back and raised the capital gain tax was the stab on the chest. “You have raised long term capital gain tax from 10 to 12.5 per cent, and for short term it was raised from 15 to 20 per cent.

Rahul Gandhi also compared the trap making ruling establishment to the opposition rule and said we have broken such traps. We in our budget waived loans of farmers, implemented MGNREGA. You have divided the entire population in small brackets so that poor can’t dream their dream, only Adani and Ambani …. On being disrupted he said that proposed to call them A-1 and A-2, since their name was too sensitive for the ruling establishment that they could not afford their name to be taken among those laying the trap. They had full control over the economy of the country he said.

He said that there are about 73 per cent Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs together. They are chief strength of the country. However, they don’t get opportunities anywhere – not in business, not in Corporate India, not in government. He game example of budget making in which 20 officials were involved but only 2 were from among the 90 per cent of people from the weaker sections. Irony in that they were not in the forefront when Finance Minister was distributing the “Budget ka Halwa”. Symbolically, he said that the budget has given benefit to only 2-3 per cent people, and that much people are distributing the financial dessert prepared in the budget. The rest of the 90 per cent of India have been given pittance.

It is through this simile he emphasized on the importance of Caste Census so that all people from every section should know how much is their share in the resources of this country. He attacked the government for laying a communal trap for the common people of this country, and said that peace, not the violence, is the true nature of the country.

Rahul Gandhi succeeded in giving clear message to the common people about the real reason of their predicaments, which was naturally very disconcerting for the treasury benches, and hence their intermittent disruption effort during his speech in the Lok Sabha. (IPA Service)