'GOVERNMENT SELLING INTERNET TO THE CORPORATES', RAHUL PUSHES BJP TO THE DEFENSIVE

NEW DELHI: Congress scion Rahul Gandhi, in his second intervention in the Lok Sabha, placed the government very firmly in the dock on the vexed issue of net neutrality. Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad sounded a little more-than-necessary agitated as he sought to convince the House that the government was committed to preserving the internet but was unable to respond to the specific demand by the Congress MP to stop consultations with the Telecom Regulatory Authority and write a law for net neutrality.

It was a significant performance carrying many signals.

1. In his brief intervention through an adjournment motion, Rahul Gandhi made a tongue in cheek reference to US praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said he read the Time magazine at the Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s house----though why this reference to his mother was necessary remains unclear---where he read US President Barack Obama wholesome praise for PM Modi. He started by referring to the PM as “your Prime Minister” to the treasury benches and was corrected it to say “India’s Prime Minister”. He said that this was the biggest praise for an Indian leader in 60 years from a country where the biggest corporates are houses. He said, this was as big perhaps as the praise lavished by the then US leadership on Gorbachev “as he used to praise the US.” The comparisons being made were not lost, as Gorbachev presided over the breakup of the Soviet Union even as he was being embraced by the US.

2. Rahul Gandhi firmly joined the cause of the youth, referring to the one million signatures of those prepared to fight for the neutrality of the internet. He said that the youth has every right to use the internet, and the Modi government was coming in the way. It is an important issue, thus, for the young people and makes a straight connection.

3. He linked the TRAI document and proposals directly with the government’s desire to “carve the internet” and “sell it to the corporates.” This is his second attack on the government for favouring corporates, the first being through his intervention for the withdrawal of the Land Acquisition Bill by the government.Here too he pointed out that PM Modi had taken loans of hundreds of thousands of crores from the corporates and was trying to pay them back through the farmers land.

4. Rahul Gandhi also gave a solution: stop the TRAI consultations; change or write a law for net neutrality.

Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad sounded agitated and a little incoherent in response. He sought to assure the House that the government was fully committed to the internet, and that the Prime Minister himself used the social media extensively. This had Congress leader Anand Sharma maintaining that this was a strange argument, and lacked substance.

The Opposition seemed united on the issue with CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury pointing out that his party had taken a stand for net neutraility a while ago, being the first to highlight the issue. All said and done, if Rahul Gandhi continues to play a proactive role in the Lok Sabha it will help galvanise the Opposition despite its reduced numbers in the House.