New Delhi, Aug 29 (IANS): After launching scathing attack on the National Monetisation Pipeline plan of the central government, the Congress has decided to take the issue to each state and hold press conferences across the country starting from August 31.
Some surprise names have been added in the list and one of them is of Milind Deora who was till now in political oblivion and now being tipped to get important assignment in the party. He has been roped in to address press conference in Cochin. While Sachin Pilot who is likely to make a comeback in Rajasthan will be in Bangalore and leaders belonging to G-23, Shashi Tharoor and Mukul Wasnik will address the press conferences in Kashmir and Guwahati respectively.
Former finance minister P. Chidambaram will hold a press conference in Mumbai, while Chhattisgarh chief minister who is facing tough political battle in the state will be in Lucknow and former Madhya Pradesh CM Digivjaya Singh in Patna.
Randeep Surjewala, Congress General Secretary said, "the party wants to tell the nation that the creation of monopolies in this country is extremely dangerous."
The series of press conferences have been initiated by Rahul Gandhi and party wants to carry forward it. Rahul Gandhi has been tweeting hashtag "IndiaOnSale".
Gandhi had said: "The Prime Minister and the BJP said that the Congress had done nothing in the last 70 years. There is a list here of all the assets that the Congress has helped build using the public money."
"Now the Prime Minister is in the process of selling the crown jewels of this country."
Listing out the sectors which are going to be privatised, Rahul Gandhi said that these are being sold and one can guess to whom it is going.
"And frankly, these will go to three to four people," he said.
Announcing the measure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said it is to unlock value in brownfield projects by engaging the private sector, transferring to them the rights but not the ownership in projects, and using the funds for infrastructure creation across the country.
But assailing the government, Gandhi said: "I want to tell the youths, your employment has been snatched, for farmers, three special farm laws have been made. And today I want to say what Prime Minister plans to give to his industrialist friends."
This, he claimed, comprises 26,700 km of national highways worth Rs 1.6 lakh crore, Rs 1.5 lakh crore in railways with 400 railways stations, 150 private trains, railway tracks and warehouses. He further said that 42,300 circuit km of transmission network, 6,000 MW power generation, solar wind assets from NHPC, NTPC and NLC, and 8,000 km of national gas pipeline of GAIL are all going to be privatised among others.
He alleged that the Prime Minister is for the elimination of the informal sector", and creation of monopolies in the formal sector.