‘First thing they sold was respect and now India on sale’: Rahul Gandhi slams National Monetisation Pipeline

New Delhi: Lashing out at the Centre over the proposed National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday accused the BJP-led Central government of “putting India on sale”.

“The very first thing they sold was respect and now #IndiaOnSale,” tweeted the Congress leader on Wednesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Wayanad MP termed the Centre’s National Monetisation Pipeline as a “huge tragedy” saying that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government had mishandled the economy and the move was aimed at creating monopolies in certain sectors.

Addressing a press conference here, he said, “What this country has built over the last 70 years, is being given away. There is an excuse they have come up with that we are leasing these. The government clearly mishandled the economy and doesn’t know what to do.” “The BJP and PM Modi say nothing happened in the last 70 years. But yesterday, the finance minister decided to sell the assets that have been built over the last 70 years. They (the government) have basically destroyed what the UPA built and now as a last resort, they are selling everything that we had helped create. To me, this is a huge tragedy,” he said.

His remarks came after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday launched the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) that includes the Centre’s four-year plan to monetise its brownfield infrastructure assets.

The government has planned a Rs 6 lakh crore pipeline of assets that can be monetised which includes a range of assets put on the block for private sector participation, over a four-year period, from Financial Year 2022 to Financial Year 2025.