Right after cornering Modi in LS, Rahul’s ‘self-sabotage’ leaves Cong red-faced

Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, has, yet again, landed himself and his party in the eye of a political storm by backing US President Donald Trump’s claim about the Indian economy being “dead”. While Rahul ostensibly intended to slam Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for having “destroyed our economic policy”, his lack of felicity in framing political jibes has ended up giving the BJP ammunition to redouble its “anti-India” taunts at the Congress leader and his party.

“Yes, he is right. Everybody knows this except the prime minister and the finance minister. I am glad that President Trump has stated a fact. The whole world knows that the BJP has finished the Indian economy to help Adani,” Rahul told reporters in the Parliament complex on Thursday (July 31) when asked to respond to Trump’s “(India and Russia) can take their dead economies down together” statement.

Also read: Modi must pay a price to tackle the new challenges from Trump’s US

No scope of denial

Interestingly, Rahul’s statement backing Trump comes just two days after he dared Modi to unequivocally condemn on the floor of Parliament the US president’s repeated assertions of brokering the India-Pakistan ceasefire following Operation Sindoor.

The Lok Sabha LoP’s aggressive intervention in the Lok Sabha during the discussion on Operation Sindoor was widely seen as an effective put-down of the Modi regime. The Congress, its allies in the Opposition’s INDIA bloc, and a section of political commentators praised Rahul’s intervention for being both precise and prescient, as he effectively canvassed the need to stand up to Trump’s repeated undermining of India’s sovereign interests while slamming Modi’s ineffectiveness in doing so.

That within 48 hours of that feisty intervention Rahul lapped up Trump’s statement has now left his party ducking for cover and the wider INDIA bloc red-faced while the BJP has got a chance to go on the offensive. To make matters worse for the Congress, Rahul also robbed himself and his party any scope of deniability or dilution of his remark with a pinned post on X.

“The Indian Economy is dead. Modi killed it,” Rahul’s X post read, as he listed out “Adani-Modi partnership, demonetisation and a flawed GST, failed ‘Assemble in India’, MSMEs wiped out, and farmers crushed” as his grounds to assert that the prime minister had “destroyed the future of India’s youth because there are no jobs”.

Also read: India has 7 options to counter Trump tariff, assert sovereign rights

Leaders make a flip-flop

The confusion and frustration triggered by Rahul’s blunt and infelicitous statement was evident as it came shortly after his impromptu interaction with the media during which he also claimed that “this deal (with the US) will happen and Trump will define how this deal happens and Modi will do exactly what Trump asks”.

Unaware that Rahul had already hailed Trump for stating a “fact”, Congress MP Rajeev Shukla told a news agency that the US President “is wrong; the Indian economy is not dead”. With news channels flashing Shukla’s statement as a sign of disagreement within the Congress over Rahul’s remark, sources told The Federal that the Congress MP was directed to retract his comment. Moments later, Shukla was back to speaking with reporters hailing Rahul as someone who “understands the economy more than I do” and asserting that the Indian economy had been given a solid foundation under previous Congress-led governments but was now being damaged in the Modi-era.

A similar flip-flop also came from Priyanka Chaturvedi, Rajya Sabha MP from the Shiv Sena (UBT), a Congress ally. Shortly after Rahul’s statement went viral, Chaturvedi posted on X, “Not that one needs to say it, there’s enough legitimate data available to know that Indian economy is in the top 5 of the world and one of the fastest growing economies. Calling it a dead economy can only come from a position of arrogance or ignorance. Thank you for your attention to this matter! (sic)”.

An hour later, while the media was still speculating whether Chaturvedi’s post was a putdown of Trump or a swipe at Rahul, she took to X again to list out India’s economic challenges though still maintaining that these “do not equate to a dead economy”.

Also read: Empty threats, mixed signals on Russia and China: Trump’s foreign policy decoded

A needless controversy

Several Congress leaders The Federal spoke to conceded that Rahul had “triggered a needless controversy” just when the Opposition believed it had got the better of the Modi government following the discussion on Operation Sindoor and was preparing to launch a fresh broadside on Trump’s decision to slap a 25 per cent tariff and a yet unspecified penalty on India.

“At the INDIA bloc floor leaders’ meeting this morning, we had discussed Trump’s announcement and all parties had decided that we will corner the government on the tariff issue while continuing to raise our objections on the Bihar SIR and other matters. What was the need (for Rahul) to make such a silly statement? Who in the country will support you if you just parrot the US President’s clearly obnoxious statements about India? By saying Trump is right in calling the Indian economy dead, he (Rahul) has weakened the entire Opposition’s stand on seeking answers from the government on Trump’s ceasefire claims. One day you say Modi must condemn Trump from Parliament and next day you say Trump is speaking facts,” fumed a senior CPM MP as he spoke to The Federal.

A Congress MP and former Union minister also noted his disappointment saying Rahul “should stop jumping in with immature statements just because he thinks he has got an issue to attack Modi”. “The tariff issue, from what I understand, is still under negotiation and Trump is known to change his stance frequently. What if tomorrow Trump changes his mind or our negotiators manage to convince the US to scale down the tariffs or even secure a good deal? Won’t we look like fools? In politics, one must always leave some scope for deniability and dilution but unfortunately Rahul doesn’t understand this. He says whatever comes to his mind and the party is left to do damage control,” the Congress MP said.

Also read: Rahul Gandhi says PM Modi on 'weak wicket' on Trump's claims

BJP gets an opportunity

Meanwhile, the BJP has predictably latched on to Rahul’s statement to slam the Congress and its first family. “Rahul Gandhi has crossed all limits, publicly endorsing Donald Trump’s slur that India is a “dead economy. Whose side is he really on? While the world recognises India’s aspiration, achievement, and wellbeing, Rahul Gandhi seems intent on running it down,” said BJP MP and spokesperson Sambit Patra, while accusing the Lok Sabha LoP of “attempting to chip away at India’s collective spirit of its ambition and achievements”.

“Whenever Rahul Gandhi speaks, he speaks against the interests of India. His only job is to hurt India’s image in collaboration with forces who cannot digest the phenomenal growth India has witnessed in every sphere, including the economy, ever since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014. We are today among the world’s fastest growing economies. Not just our government but foreign governments and international agencies have all repeatedly expressed confidence that India will soon become the third largest economy in the world but Rahul Gandhi is not happy. He is echoing Trump, who is Pakistan’s friend, to say the Indian economy is dead. This is why I always say that it is the misfortune of this country that its Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha is the most anti-national individual in this country,” BJP MP Nishikant Dubey told The Federal.