New Delhi: She was not there to witness first hand her son take on the Narendra Modi government on the controversial Land Acquisition Bill in the Lok Sabha but she lauded his effort even as the Bharatiya Janata Party refused to back down and came out in full force to defend the legislation.
Just a day after his frontal attack on the BJP on Land Bill, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was still breathing fire as he tore into the Centre's claims much to the satisfaction on Sonia Gandhi who said she was happy with his comeback.
"I did not hear the full speech of Rahul as I was busy meeting party leaders and farmers at my residence. But I was told by people it was good," she said.
Even though she was not present in Parliament during Rahul's speech, she appreciated his initiative and said that the party will keep raising farmers' issues after holding deliberations with all Congress Lok Sabha MPs.
Party whip KC Venugopal, however, said that there was no whip issued to the 44 Congress Lok Sabha MPs and it was only known in the afternoon that Rahul would be speaking. Sonia could not attend the session as she was meeting a farmers' delegation at her residence in Delhi. Apart from Sonia, another prominent MP who was not present was Kamal Nath along with 14 other lawmakers.
Party sources said that Rahul is expected to utilise to the hilt the remaining short stint of the Budget Session and could be seen intervening more often.
In his first speech, the Congress Vice-President said the government cannot give satisfactory replies to the problems of farmers and labourers.
Taking a dig at Modi's suit which had his name written all over it, Rahul called the Central government a 'suit boot wali sarkar'.
Continuing from where he had stopped on Sunday at the Congress Kisan Khet Mazdoor rally in New Delhi, Rahul while speaking on the Land Acquisition Bill in the Lok Sabha took a dig at the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government and said that the 'achche din' government has failed the country.
But BJP MP and Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu rubbished Rahul's claims. He said it was wrong to call Modi government pro-corporate as all its schemes are aimed at helping the poor.
He said the government has been pro-active in dealing with the crop damages due to unseasonal rains and was not discriminating against state governments even if they were from an opposition party. "It was the NDA government which thought of connecting the rural areas via roads. This current government is still committed to that idea which was initiated by AB Vajpayee," Naidu said.
While Rahul was speaking in Parliament BJP MPs continuously took pot shots at him by continuously passing comments about his whereabouts during his mysterious leave.
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