Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday linked the parliament security breach with unemployment as he participated in the protest against the suspension of fellow opposition lawmakers. Addressing the gathering at Jantar Mantar, the former Congress president also took a swipe at the BJP MPs claiming they ran away from the scene as soon as the intruders jumped from the Lok Sabha gallery with coloured smoke canisters.
“A few days ago, 2-3 youths jumped inside the Parliament House, we all saw, they came inside and spread some smoke. All the BJP MPs ran away. They call themselves nationalists but we saw how afraid they were,” Gandhi said.
“First of all, how did those people come inside, they brought gas cylinders inside the Parliament. If they could bring that then they could have brought anything,” he added.
Gandhi asserted that the intruders wanted to raise the burning issue of unemployment in the country.
“The second question is why did they protest? The reason for this was unemployment. There is huge unemployment in the country. The youth of this country cannot get employment today,” he said.
He lamented the condition of the youth saying they are spending, on an average, 7.5 hours on their mobile phones surfing social media, which he said was due to unemployment.
He also questioned the media for not highlighting issues like unemployment or the suspension of opposition MPs which is in effect muzzling the voices of millions.
“The only thing they say is Rahul Gandhi took a video of the mimicry,” he said.
Leaders of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc staged a protest under the banner ‘Save Democracy’ at Jantar Mantar in the national capital on Friday. Senior opposition leaders, including Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, CPI-M’s Sitaram Yechury, and others, shared the dais to protest against the recent suspension of 146 opposition MPs from Parliament’s Winter Session, which was adjourned sine die on Thursday.
NCP Supremo Sharad Pawar said the opposition was ready to pay any price to save the democracy.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said that the protest is to send a message among people that whatever is happening is ‘wrong for the future of the country’.
