Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being biased towards industrialist Gautam Adani and of discriminating against Wayanad landslides victims by not providing them the due support.

In a joint public meeting with sister Priyanka in Wayanad after her massive victory in the Lok Sabha byelection, Rahul alleged that PM Modi was treating Adani differently from the people of India, despite his indictment in the US, even though the Constitution says everyone should be treated equally.

Hitting out at PM Modi, Rahul claimed that the “PM says it does not matter if Adani has been indicted in the US and called a criminal there, in India we will not indict him”.

Continuing his allegations against the prime minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha said Modi discriminates against the people of Wayanad and he was not willing to provide them the support that they were due.

He said: “This is the atmosphere in which we are operating. It is the feelings that people have toward us that give us confidence and protect us.”

After paying tribute to the victims of the landslides, Rahul said his party and the UDF are standing with the people who lost family members, property and suffered in the tragedy.

He said unfortunately his party is not in the government and therefore they cannot do what a government can do. “So, I told my sister and (AICC general secretary) K C Venugopal that every member of the Congress and the UDF should put pressure on the government of Kerala to help the victims of the landslides,” he added.

Rahul said Priyanka’s win from the Wayanad seat indicates that the people have placed their faith and trust in them to represent the hill constituency in the Parliament. He also expressed confidence that the Congress-led opposition will defeat the ideology of the BJP which behaves arrogantly and allegedly spreads hate and divisiveness.

The Congress on Saturday slammed the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government over the sinking Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate and said stagnating real wages as the fundamental reason behind it.

Sharing the party statement on the recent data from a research firm on X, Congress general secretary in-charge communication Jairam Ramesh hit out at PM Modi for being willfully blind to the causes of this sharp slowdown.

On India’s economic growth slowing to a near two-year low, Ramesh said the country’s medium and long-term economic potential is eroding rapidly.

The Congress leader asked how long will the grim reality of stagnant wages for crores of workers continue to be ignored.

GDP growth figures released last evening for July-September 2024 are much worse than anticipated, with India recording a measly 5.4% growth and consumption similarly growing by an unimpressive 6%, Ramesh said.

He said the “non-biological” PM and his cheerleaders were wilfully blind to the causes of this sharp slowdown, but, he added a new report on ‘Labour Dynamics of Indian States’ released by a leading Mumbai-based financial information services company, India Ratings and Research, on the 26th of November 2024 reveals its real cause: stagnant wages.

Ramesh noted that the report uses Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data to show that overall real wage growth at the national level has been flat at 0.01% over the last five years.

In fact, the workers in Haryana, Assam and Uttar Pradesh have seen their real wages decline in the same period, he pointed out.

This is hardly the exception, nearly every piece of evidence points to this same damning conclusion that the average Indian can buy less today than they could 10 years ago, Ramesh said.

“This is the ultimate root cause for India’s growth slowdown, and multiple sources of data have now confirmed this wage stagnation,” Ramesh stated.

Citing the Labour Bureau’s Wage Rate Index, he said real wages for the labourers stagnated between 2014-2023 and in fact declined between 2019-2024.

Ramesh further cited the Ministry of Agriculture’s Agricultural Statistics and said that under former prime minister Manmohan Singh, real wages for agricultural labourers grew at 6.8% each year.

“Under Narendra Modi, real wages for agricultural labourers declined by minus 1.3% each year,” he said.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Saturday appealed to the Bangladesh interim government to release ISKCON monk Chinmoy Krishna Das from jail immediately and said attacks on Hindus by Islamic fundamentalists were extremely worrying.

In a statement, RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale also appealed to the Government of India to press its demands to stop the atrocities on the Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh. He asked the Indian government to take necessary steps to build global opinion in its support at the earliest.

“The attacks, murders, looting, arson as well as inhuman atrocities by Islamic fundamentalists on Hindus, women and all other minorities in Bangladesh are extremely worrying and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh condemns this,” Hosabale said.

He said that the present Bangladesh government and other agencies were only silent spectators instead of stopping the atrocities.

The RSS general secretary said that out of helplessness, a new phase of injustice and atrocities seems to be emerging against the Hindus of Bangladesh to suppress the voice raised by them in a democratic way for self-defense.

“It is unjust for the Bangladesh government to send ISKCON monk Chinmoy Krishna Das, who is leading the Hindus in such peaceful demonstrations, to jail,” he said.

Hosabale added that Bangladesh Police earlier on Monday arrested International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) monk Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari from the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport area in Dhaka while he was travelling to Chittagong.

At this crucial time, India and the global community and institutions should stand with the victims of Bangladesh and express their support, and demand that their respective governments make every possible effort to ensure that atrocities on the Hindus and other minorities are stopped in Bangladesh immediately, the RSS general secretary said.

“We want a united Bangladesh,” said the priest, arrested by Bangladeshi authorities, in a message from a prison van on Tuesday. Addressing his followers outside the Chittagong court, the ISKCON priest, who enjoys massive popularity in the country, urged his supporters to remain peaceful and avoid disrupting public order.

Communication Director, ISKCON, Vrajendra Nandan Das on Friday said: “If an institution like ISKCON is called a terrorist and radical organisation in Bangladesh, it’s a baseless thing and a lie. No one – in India and around the world will accept this. Those devotees who organised Bhandara and fed needy people – were killed. I hope that the interim govt of Bangladesh will take strict action against the culprits and I expect them to give proper security to Hindus.”