Hitting out at prime minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that it has saddled the country with a debt of Rs 200 lakh crore and atrocities against Dalits have increased during its rule. Funds for welfare schemes are cut and scholarships are denied to students from backward communities. If BJP is not stopped the country will be ruined and the constitution will be destroyed, he said.
 
“The Congress party follows the ideology of Phule, Shahu, Ambedkar, while Modi follows the ideology of RSS,” he said.
 
He said that 146 laws were passed in the parliament session this month after suspending 146 MPs of the opposition who raised questions. “Modi has time to travel around the world but he has no time to come to the parliament when it is in session. It is a mockery of democracy to pass laws by suspending 146 MPs of opposition parties who asked questions in Parliament.”

Speaking in Nagpur at a public meeting to mark the 139th foundation day of the Congress party at the ‘Bharat Jodo Maidan’, Kharge said even though  32 lakh government posts  are lying vacant in the centre, the government does not recruit people. “Democracy and the constitution are under threat in the country and inflation and unemployment have increased manifold,” he said.

Kharge appealed to the people to teach Modi and BJP a lesson for strangling democracy. He further said that BJP does not uphold rights to women, poor and backward communities that are provided for under the constitution.

Former party president and MP Rahul Gandhi said that since Narendra Modi came to power at the centre the media, the election commission and courts have not been spared. He said Modi had promised to create 2 crore jobs every year, and asked how many got jobs in these 10 years.

Gandhi said that the country today has the highest unemployment rate in 40 years and on the other hand all the wealth of the country is being handed over to two-four industrialists. OBCs, Dalits, backward classes are getting very less share in power and administration.
 
He said that after the Congress party demanded a caste-wise census, Modi has started saying that the poor are the only caste in the country.

Gandhi said that if the Congress comes to power, it will conduct a caste-wise census and provide employment to young people which the Modi government cannot provide.

Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole,  former chief minister Ashok Chavan, All India Congress Committee general secretary and MP K. C. Venugopal, Mukul Vasnik and Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy were among those present.