DEMONETISATION AND GST HAS SPOILED SMALL N MEDIUM BUSINESSMEN SAYS RAHUL

The Congress Party vice president and Nehru Gandhi family scion Rahul Gandhi’s incessant Gujarat visits and his vociferous attacks on Prime minister Narendra Modi and BJP led NDA government at the centre on GST and demonetisation is the only issue that is being emphasised repeatedly with no emphasis on issues like inflation and unemployment. While Rahul Gandhi’s impact in Gujarat is gaining a positive aspect in terms of enhancement in large crowds in his rallies and consolidation of the minority vote bank alongwith the vote of anti incumbency as the BJP is ruling in Gujarat for the protracted period of nineteen years, the Congress party workers and leaders are finding it difficult to explain the people about the demerits of GST as they have not been educated in detail about the intricacies of the complex GST functioning leading to problems to small and medium businessmen and traders. The increasing activity and performance of Rahul Gandhi in social networking sites, particularly the twitter compounded with his furious targetting of BJP leadership in the context of Gujarat election with his fire brand speeches has constrained BJP to adopt a more attacking mode leading the state chief minister Rupani accuse Ahmed Patel, the Congress Rajya Sabha member and Sonia’s political secretary of allegedly in league with anti national elements which finally got badly back fired. Rahul’s highly successful Bharuch rally of Gujarat held on 1st November after successes of other previous rallies during the last few days under his Gujarat mission has definitely send threatening signals to BJP but if we go by the recent opinion polls BJP still seems to be far ahead in Gujarat. The major draw back for the Congress party in Gujarat is that while BJP has no dearth of political leaders right from prime minister Modi to party chief Amit Shah to Gujarat CM Rupani to the entire cabinet in Congress except Rahul Gandhi no other leader carries any special or significant political impact or charisma on the electorates of Gujarat as the Gandhi scion. Moreover, the entire state and central machinery was at work prior to the declaration of the election dates and subsequent code of conduct with announcement of pre election freebies, worth thousand of crores. The former CM Gujarat Shankar Singh Vaghela had also left Congress and few MLA’s as well. While the Gujarat election is a litmus test for prime minister Narendra Modi after spate recent victories in UP, Uttarakhand etc it’s no less significant for Rahul Gandhi, as well, who is likely to be appointed as the Congress Party chief, the party that is 135 years old and ruled India for more than 60 years.

SUNIL NEGI