'Says Make in India But Buys from China': With Data Chart, Gandhi Siblings Attack Govt

New Delhi: Targeting government post Chinese apps ban, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday posted a data chart showing that imports from the dragonland had increased after 2014.

"Facts don't lie. BJP says: Make in India. BJP does: Buy from China," Rahul Gandhi said in a sharp tweet attaching a graphics of the percentage of imports from China during the UPA rule and the NDA government.

The graphics showed that from 2008 to 2014, the imports from China were below 14 per cent, while during the BJP-led NDA rule, the Chinese import increased to over 18 per cent.

The graphics also depicted that in 2008 under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the imports from China were at 12 per cent while it rose to 14 per cent in 2012 but again came down to 13 per cent in 2014.

While under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the imports from China grew from 13 per cent to 14 per cent in 2015, to 16 per cent in 2016, to 17 per cent in 2017 and to 18 per cent in 2018, the graphics attached by Rahul Gandhi showed.

Gandhi's sister Priyanka also endorsed his data chart while retweeting it. She has recently been attacking the UP government over a number of issues like fuel price hike and arrest of Congress's minority cell chairman Shahnawaz Alam.

"Congress leaders and activists are committed to raise their voice on public issues. The BJP government can use the Police as an instrument to suppress the voices of other parties, but not our party (Congress). Look, how the UP Police arrested the Chairman of our Minority cell in the darkness of the night," Priyanka Gandhi said in a series of tweets in Hindi.

"First, our state president (Ajay Kumar Lallu) was kept in jail for four weeks on fake charges. Now this police action is repressive and undemocratic. Congress workers are not afraid of police and fake cases," she said in another tweet.

According to UP Police, Alam was arrested by the Lucknow police, late on Monday night, for his alleged involvement in the anti-CAA violence which took place in December last year.

A CCTV video circulated by UP Congress leaders shows cops taking away Alam from outside an apartment, close to the chief minister's residence, in a police vehicle. UP Police statement said that Alam was arrested for his involvement in the anti-CAA protest which took place on December 19, 2019 in Lucknow. He has been arrested after the police gathered sufficient evidence against him.

Priyanka Gandhi has been critical of the state government for the past few months.

She had locked horns with the state government over providing 1,000 buses for transporting the stranded migrant workers in the state in mid May. UP Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu was arrested in the same case.

(With inputs from IANS)