Disinvestment of BPCL is 'systematic destruction' of country's public sector: Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a scathing attack at the BJP-led Centre over its decision to disinvest state-run Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), alleging that it is a "systematic destruction" of the country's public sector.

"This is the systematic destruction of India's public sectors and also India's backbone. Today, you might think this is BPCL issue and it will not affect us. But, remember and mark my words..., the same thing is going to be done to other companies in the public sector," he said at an event here.

Gandhi made the comments after the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had last month accorded "in-principle" approval for strategic disinvestment in five central public-sector enterprises including the BPCL.

Slamming the government over the economic slowdown, Gandhi said that demonetisation and GST "murdered" the country's informal sector and farmers.

"Everybody understands the economic situation of the country today. Our economy used to grow at 9 per cent, now it's growing at 4 pc...The Prime Minister does demonetisation and imposes a flaw GST on this country and has destroyed millions of small and medium businesses," he said.

"People might think that demonetisation and GST was a foolish mistake by the Prime Minister and GST was implemented in a bad way. But's it's not true. The real reason of demonetisation and GST was to clear the way for India's biggest and most powerful corporates and the murder of India's informal sector, farmers and small and medium businesses," added the Congress leader.

He termed the Modi government as "Ambani-Adani sarkar", saying that "India's 15 biggest corporates were forgiven 3.5 lakh crores forgiven to them in non-performing assets in the last five years".

"Some of the leaders and union members use the word privatisation. It is important to define the correct word of what is happening. This is not privatisation. The correct word to use is theft. What Narendra Modi is doing, he's actually helping his masters," Gandhi alleged.