'If supported, India's small-scale industry can compete with China'

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that if India's small scale industry would get support from the government they can compete with China.

Addressing a gathering in Punjab's Ludhiana during his ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' on Thursday, Rahul Gandhi said, "The Prime Minister's 'billionaire friend' cannot compete with China, India's small industries can do it by providing employment to crores of youth in the country."

Taking a jibe at Narendra Modi government, he said, "The Kauravas of the 21st century have a blindfold of greed and arrogance, they neither a vision nor a thought for progress."

The Congress MP further said that the BJP government's policies like demonetisation and 'wrong' GST have hurt Ludhiana. "Demonetisation and GST were not policies, but weapons to destroy small-scale industries."

"The focus of the Central government is only on two-three families. No one is paying attention to the small scale industry. Big houses cannot provide employment to the country, but small scale industries can. Centre is not doing anything for small scale industry. If small scale industry gets help then we can compete with China," Rahul Gandhi asserted.

He accused the BJP of "spreading fear, hatred and violence in the country". "Brother is being pitted against brother, one religion against the other, one caste against the other," he added.

The Congress leader, during his Yatra in Punjab on Thursday, met five groups - professional wrestlers, members of round-table NGOs working in the field of education, RTI activists, members of 'Ek Zaria' NGO which is working in the medical science field, and intellectuals on the Himalayan issues.