Rahul dares PM to scrap Indo-US trade deal

Bhopal: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the India-US interim trade deal was sealed under "pressure" and dared PM Narendra Modi to cancel the "anti-farmer" agreement in the wake of the US Supreme Court invalidating global tariffs. "This is not a deal, this is like an arrow struck right in the heart of the farmer," he said.The PM is "acting under the pressure of President Donald Trump because of the Epstein files and to save industrialist Gautam adani against whom there is a criminal case pending in the US", Rahul said in his address at Congress's first ‘Kisan Maha Chaupal' in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh — India's leading soyabean producing state. The chaupal is part of the party's national outreach against the deal.Through the trade deal, the PM has compromised the interests of India's agriculture, textile, data and import sectors, he alleged.The roadmap on the outreach was announced last week by Congress at a meeting where party president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul met leaders from J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Congress has claimed that these states will be the "most adversely" affected by the trade deal. The next chaupal will be held in Yavatmal on March 7 before Parliament reconvenes on March 9 for the second part of the budget session. The third congregation is planned in Rajasthan's Sriganganagar.Building on Rahul's attack on the govt, Kharge accused Modi of being a "cowardly PM" and the trade deal as a "surrender" by the govt.In the backdrop of the arrests of Youth Congress members over their shirtless protests at the global AI summit in Delhi last week, Kharge went all all out to "congratulate" them "for standing firm and confronting Modi, and drawing attention to the situation of the youth in the face of challenges such as unemployment". "When you (PM) pledged our pride at Trump's feet (through the deal), that very day our honour was lost," Kharge alleged.