Lok Sabha election 2024: Rahul Gandhi’s rhetoric on ‘X-ray/wealth survey’ — a faux pas or calculated move

Vibha Sharma

Chandigarh, April 26

Sensing a “major political blunder” by the Congress amid the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, the ruling BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are gunning for their main opponent Congress on the issue.

While hitting out at Congress and TMC for spreading “canards about CAA”, PM Modi today said “a competition of appeasement is going on between these two parties. The Congress wants to grab your property, and the TMC is not uttering even a single word against this.”

“The state government is working to settle Bangladeshi infiltrators in Bengal, and the Congress is talking about distributing your wealth among those,” he told a rally in Malda, West Bengal.

Wealth survey

The Congress manifesto talked about addressing “growing inequality of wealth and income through suitable changes in policies”. However, senior party leader Rahul Gandhi took the idea a step further in his election speeches, pushing for economic and institutional surveys, along with caste census.

Gandhi said if voted to power the Congress would conduct a financial and institutional survey to ascertain the distribution of wealth among the people in the country. Though according to some reports suggesting a “U- turn” on his “wealth survey” remark, Gandhi was also quoted as saying that he only wanted to find out the amount of injustice the country was facing.

“I have not said we will take action yet. I am just saying let us find out how much injustice has been done,” Gandhi said addressing the party's ‘Social Justice Conference’ on Wednesday.

“Look at how Prime Minister Narendra Modi reacted the moment I said let us test how much injustice has been done. They are saying this is an attempt to break down the country. Through the X-ray (wealth survey), we will get to know the problem,” he said

“Injustice is being done to 90 per cent of Indians. The moment I called for checking this injustice, the Prime Minister and the BJP started attacking me,” Gandhi alleged, adding that as soon as his party government is formed, “the first thing that would be done is caste census”.

BJP alleges ‘appeasement politics’ and much more

The BJP, which has been calling all this a part of Congress’s “appeasement politics and economics,” claimed that growing middle class were being threatened as their wealth would be “grabbed” if the Congress forms the next government.

Adding fuel to the fire were Indian Overseas Congress chairman Sam Pitroda’s comments on inheritance tax. Though the Congress seemed to distance itself, Pitroda’s remarks yet again triggered a major political slugfest with PM Modi attacking Congress for also planning to impose higher taxes and not wanting people to pass on their hard-earned income to their children.

Backing the idea of an inheritance tax and cited the example of the US, Pitroda was quoted as saying that there was “nothing wrong in accumulating wealth but to what point?”

“Let me tell you, in America there's an inheritance tax. So, if let's say one has $100 million worth of wealth, and when he dies he can transfer probably 45% to his children, 55% is grabbed by the government. Now that's an interesting law. It says you, in your generation, made wealth, and you are leaving now, you must leave your wealth for the public - not all of it, half of it, which to me sounds fair. In India you don't have that. If somebody is worth $10 billion and dies his children get $10 billion. The public gets nothing. So these are the kinds of issues that people will have to debate and discuss,” reports quoted him as saying

Will this hurt or benefit Congress

Now, the big question, will Pitroda’s latest “gaffe” as it is being called by some observers, hurt Congress’ election prospects? For them, the BJP may have played another “masterstroke” by turning it into a controversy. “The BJP, especially PM Modi are masters in this art, they know where and how to strike the chord,” they say  

However, there is also a another point of view according to which when Gandhi first spoke about ‘jitni abadi, utna haq’ in Karnataka Assembly elections, it gave “good dividends”

“The fact is even after winning there, the CWC just passed a resolution saying a “nationwide caste census will reveal an accurate picture of the socio-economic position of communities across the country and provide a sound, data-driven basis for policies to strengthen the foundations of social justice and ensure inclusive development”, they point out.

“When he speaks of wealth survey, Gandhi seems to be addressing issues based on inequality of caste and wealth. He says ‘X-ray’ will reveal who owns what and earns what. A fact also is that despite hardships, the marginalised and poor appeared to like the idea of demonetisation, believing it was a leveller. The idea that demonetisation was hitting the rich hard made the poor happy and convinced that the policy will turn their fortunes in the long run or at least hurt those with immense money,” they say.

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