The Narendra Modi government is running an “election campaign” using the upcoming G-20 summit in India and is trying to divert people’s attention from real issues, the Congress alleged on Saturday.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh wrote on social media platform X that the G-20 was formed in 1999, with 19 countries and the European Union as members.
“Since its formation, the G-20 summit has been held in 17 countries in turns. Now it is India’s turn. But the kind of election campaign that is being run here and efforts being made to create such an atmosphere around it, has not happened in any other country,” Mr. Ramesh said.
“In fact, this is being done to divert the attention of the people from the important issues,” he added.
The Congress leader said India had successfully organised the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement of more than 100 countries in 1983 and after that a summit of Commonwealth countries in New Delhi the same year. But the government of the day did not use those opportunities for electoral gains, he said.
Advani’s comment
“Then I remember that statement of L.K. Advani. On April 5, 2014, he described Narendra Modi as a great event manager. To divert the attention of the public, the Prime Minister is only doing event management,” Mr. Ramesh alleged.
On September 9 and 10, India will host the G-20 Leaders’ Summit at the newly built Bharat Mandapam International Exhibition-Convention Centre as the current president of the grouping.
The G-20 group represents around 85% of the global GDP, over 75% of the global trade and about two-thirds of the world’s population.
The grouping comprises Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the U.K., the U.S. and the European Union.
Mr Ramesh’s post came on a day when he, along with several other civil society activists, were prevented from carrying on with a seminar-cum-workshop, We20, on alternative policies . The programme was held at the Harkishan Singh Surjeet Bhavan of the CPI(M).
Report on Gujarat
In another post on X, the Congress leader targeted the Prime Minister’s home State of Gujarat over a Niti Aayog report.
“The nation is often reminded by G2 (Modi & Shah) especially of what they call Gujarat model. But what the nation is not told has been revealed in a recent Niti Aayog report: over 38% of population is under-nourished. Nearly half of rural Gujarat is deprived of nutrition, ranks 4th worst in India in terms of stunted children, ranks 2nd worst in India in wasted and underweight children and more than a third of the rural population is deprived of housing,” Mr. Ramesh said.
