My father inherited martyrdom from his mother, not wealth: Priyanka Gandhi

Morena (MP): Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday said her father inherited not wealth but "martyrdom" from his mother, former prime minister late Indira Gandhi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had alleged last week that Rajiv Gandhi abolished inheritance tax after coming to power so that the wealth he had inherited from his mother would not be taxed.

"My father did not inherit wealth, he inherited martyrdom from his mother," Priyanka Gandhi said at an election rally here.

At a rally in Morena last week, Modi had said that earlier, half of a deceased person's wealth went to the government by law.

"There was talk then that Indira ji had willed her wealth in her son Rajiv Gandhi's name. To save the money going to the government (after her death), then PM Rajiv Gandhi abolished the inheritance tax," he said.

Congress had refuted the claim. Priyanka, meanwhile, dared Modi to construct shelters for stray cattle in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

"PM Narendra Modi has said today, beware, if you have two buffaloes, the Congress will steal one of them," she said, referring to Modi's pitch that the opposition party was planning to reintroduce inheritance tax and take away people's property.

"I throw a challenge to Modi ji; collect stray cattle in UP and MP, and put them in `gaushala' (cow shelters)," the Congress leader said.

"Solve the problem of stray cattle. Build cowsheds, strengthen them, like the previous Congress government in Chhattisgarh did," she added.

The gaushalas in Chhattisgarh provided women with income, and the government also bought cow dung from them, Gandhi said.

Unemployment rate in the country was at a 45-year high and government recruitment examinations were being hit by paper leaks while the Modi government was also closing available employment avenues, the Congress leader claimed. Loans of Rs 16 lakh crore of 20 to 22 businessmen have been waived by the Modi government, she alleged.

"Under the Modi government, the poor have become poorer in the last ten years," Gandhi claimed.