Won't let PM sleep until he waives off farmers loan: Rahul Gandhi

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday vociferously said that he won't let Prime Minister Narendra Modi sleep until the farmers' loans are waived off.

"We will not let Prime Minister Modi sleep till he waives off loans of farmers, all opposition parties will unitedly demand this. Till now, PM has not waived off a single rupee of farmers," the Gandhi scion said stepping up his attack on the Prime Minister.

It is learnt that the party leadership had made it clear to the newly appointed chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh that the first file they would move should be of farmers' loan waiver.

On Monday, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath shortly after taking oath waived off farm loans of Rs 2 lakh each. Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Bhupesh Baghel, too, soon after taking charge yesterday announced that his government will waive off farm loans within 10 days as promised.

Gandhi, while speaking to media, also called demonetisation as the "biggest scam" in the world, adding that people have been lied to and traders looted.

"JPC, Rafale, farm loan waivers, demonetisation, typo errors will soon emerge in everything. People have been lied to, farmers and small traders are being looted. Demonetisation is the biggest scam in the world," he said.

On November 8, 2016, the Centre had declared Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as non-legal and introduced new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes. Since then, various opposition parties have been highly critical of the Centre's move, while the members of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies have backed the decision.

When asked about the conviction of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, Gandhi said: "I have made my position on the riots very clear, and I have said this before. This press conference is about the farmers of the country and that Mr. Modi refuses to waive off even one rupee of loan."

The Delhi High Court on Monday overturned a lower court judgement and convicted Sajjan Kumar in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case sentencing him to life imprisonment.

The bench of Justice S Muralidhar and Justice Vinod Goel asked the 73-year-old former Member of Parliament (MP) to surrender before December 31. The court also directed him not to leave Delhi and levied a fine of Rs 5 lakh on him.

The case pertains to the murder of five members of a Sikh family in the Delhi Cantonment area during the large-scale violence that occurred following the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. During four days of carnage, about 2,700 Sikhs were killed in the national capital alone.

In 2013, the Karkardooma trial court had acquitted Kumar in the case and convicted five others. The appeal against the said order was filed by those convicted in the case, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the family of victims.

-ANI