Rahul Gandhi vows to keep pressing Modi on farm loan waivers, alleges ‘two Indias’

Congress president Rahul Gandhi said he would keep up pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi until the Centre offered relief to farmers, pointing to his party’s newly formed governments in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which he said had announced farm loan waivers within six hours of taking office. He spoke a day after three Congress leaders were sworn in as chief ministers in states previously held by the BJP.

What Rahul Gandhi said

Gandhi said Rajasthan, the third state the party had won, would follow with its own waiver soon. Senior opposition leaders had accompanied him to the swearing-in ceremonies, held one after another in the three state capitals. On arriving at Parliament he remarked that the work had already started.

Describing the Congress victories in the recent assembly elections as a win for farmers, he claimed the Prime Minister had not written off a single rupee owed by poor farmers. He promised waivers in every Congress-ruled state and said the BJP would be compelled to do the same nationally. “We won’t let Modi ji sleep in peace until we make him waive farmers’ loans,” he said.

He also accused the Prime Minister of creating two Indias, repeating his charge that Modi cared only about 15-20 businessmen friends rather than farmers. According to Gandhi, the country’s top 15 industrialists stood on one side and farmers, the poor, young people and small traders on the other, and he alleged that Rs 3.5 lakh crore had gone into the pockets of the former. He called the 2016 demonetisation the world’s biggest scam, saying it took money from the poor and handed it to the rich. On the Rafale fighter jet deal, he said he was willing to debate it but the BJP did not seem ready.

BJP response

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad dismissed the remarks, saying: “This is a new low in public discourse in the country.” He went on to accuse the Congress of decades of corruption and misgovernance.

What happened next

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, counted on 23 May 2019, the BJP won 303 of 543 seats and the Congress 52. Narendra Modi was sworn in for a second term on 30 May 2019.

See also: Indian National Congress · More election news

Originally published on 19 December 2018. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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