Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Modi will go down in history as PM who oversaw largest sale, mortgage of gold jewellery, says Congress

New Delhi: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that the Congress manifesto states they will calculate the gold with mothers and sisters and then redistribute it, the Congress on Monday said he will go down in history as the PM who has overseen the largest sale and mortgage of gold jewellery owned by Indian women.

Addressing a rally in Rajasthan's Banswara, Modi alleged the Congress plans to give people's hard-earned money and valuables to 'infiltrators' and 'those who have more children'.

"The Congress manifesto says they will calculate the gold with mothers and sisters, and then distribute that property. They will distribute it to whom - Manmohan Singh's government had said that Muslims have the first right on the country's assets," he had claimed.

In a post on X, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, "Prime Minister Modi will go down in history as the PM who has overseen the largest scale sale and mortgage of the gold jewellery owned by Indian women."

"Economic disasters like demonetisation, a badly-designed GST, and the Modi government’s unplanned lockdown and poor Covid relief packages have pushed India's households into the highest levels of debt, (40 per cent of the GDP)," he said.

"Net savings are at the lowest level ever (5 per cent of GDP). Families have been forced to sell their gold, or take loans by pledging their gold as collateral - a state of distress and desperation," Ramesh said.

In the last five years, outstanding gold loans have grown by 300 per cent, he added.

"In February of 2024, gold loans crossed the Rs. 1 lakh crore mark for the first time in India's history. These are shameful statistics," the Congress leader said.

"Recall that just during the pandemic alone, due to the Modi Sarkar's complete incompetence, negligence, and mismanagement, India’s women had to give up over Rs. 60,000 crore worth of gold as collateral. Their gold was auctioned off by lenders and banks in full-page ads," he said.