Piyush Goyal exposes the hypocrisy of Sonia Gandhi for accusing Modi government of crony capitalism

In a speech in the ongoing Budget Session in Lok Sabha, senior Congress leader and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi hit out at the Modi government for its plan to corporatize rail coach factories, including Modern Coach Factory in Raebareli. She accused the Railways of aiming to privatize production units and alleged the Modi government of moving towards privatization of profit-making public sector units. The 5-minute speech of Mrs. Gandhi praised the Nehruvian economic policies which were responsible for what was termed as ‘Hindu rate of growth’.

The government plans to corporatize seven production units (PUs) — Chittaranjan Locomotive Works; Integral Coach Factory, Chennai; Diesel Locomotive Works, Banaras; Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala; Modern Coach Factory, Raebareli; Diesel Loco Modernisation Works, Patiala; and Rail Wheel Factory, Bengaluru for autonomy and efficiency in management. The production units will be brought under a government-owned entity named Indian Railway Rolling Stock Company.

Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal today slammed Sonia Gandhi over her allegations against the Modi government. Replying to her charges, the minister said, “The Congress government did not do corporatization, it encouraged privatization. We got jobs in our government production units, made good modern coaches, set up train sets, built electric train. For that, we have done corporatization and brought investment.”

The Ministry of Railways also released a pointed rebuttal to the claims made by Sonia Gandhi. “Corporatization is not privatization. What the railways mean by corporatization is to create a government PSU [public sector unit] — Indian Railway Rolling Stock Company — under the Ministry of Railways, and shift the production units including MCF, Raebareli to that,” said a senior official from Railways Ministry.

The Modi government only aims to ‘corporatize’ the manufacturing entities to make them more efficient and Sonia Gandi is erred by this. On the other hand, Congress-led UPA government institutionalized privatization under the crony capitalistic finance minister P Chidambaram.

“Disinvestment and privatization are useful economic tools. We will selectively employ these tools, consistent with the declared policy. As a  first step, I propose to establish a Board for Reconstruction of Public  Sector  Enterprises  (BRPSE). The Board will advise the Government on the measures to be taken to restructure PSEs, including cases where disinvestment or closure or sale is justified,” Chidambaram had said in his Budget speech in 2004-05.

The Congress government not only institutionalized privatization of PSUs but also prepared a framework for the corporatization of stock exchanges where government presence is considered crucial.

“The Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956, as amended recently, requires all stock exchanges to be corporatized and de-mutualized. Three stock exchanges are not yet corporatized. In order to facilitate their corporatization, I propose to grant a one-time exemption to them from stamp duty on the notional transfer of assets,” said Chidambaram in the second budget speech of UPA government.

The above examples show that the senior leaders of the Congress party are nothing but hypocrites. They cry for socialism and expansion of PSUs while in opposition and work for privatization when in government.

Sonia Gandhi also repeated the old cry of Congress party that the Modi government is working for the benefits of a few corporates. However, the fact remains that ‘Crony Capitalism’ has been the hallmark of 10 years of Congress-led UPA government. The second term of Congress-led UPA government was marred with corruption with one after another scam coming out in public in the later years of the UPA-2 rule.

Only two scams under UPA cost more than 3 lakh crore rupees to the public exchequer. Spectrumgate and Coalgate was Direct Benefit Transfer to the corporates by Congress-led UPA government in which Sonia Gandhi was the ‘de facto’ head. In 2012, CAG had tabled the coal scam report in Parliament and pegged the loss at 1.86 lakh crore rupees while the loss in the case of spectrum auction was estimated at 1.76 lakh Crore rupees.

The rampant corruption in the UPA government reduced the Congress party to 44 seats in the 2014 general elections. The party’s hypocrisy and irrelevant social and economic ideas kept the party in double-digits in the 2019 general elections when the party won only 52 seats. 

Full Video: