Rahul Gandhi also said, “We are not against privatization. Our (UPA government’s) privatization had a logic and there was no privatization of strategic industry such as the railways. All this privatization is for creating monopolies. You know who owns ports and getting airports,” he said, claiming the Prime Minister is “selling the crown jewels of India.”

Some of the projects the government plans to lease are 26,700km of roads, 90 passenger trains, 400 railway stations, 28,608 circuit km transmission lines, 286,000km of Bharatnet fiber network, and 14,917 towers owned by state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd.

The Monetization Pipeline, as finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Monday, will lease infrastructure assets of central government ministries and state-run companies to create ₹6 trillion funds to build new infrastructure.

Former Congress finance minister P Chidambaram termed the exercise as “a grand bargain sale” and quipped, “virtually, no public sector will exist after this.”

Chidambaram ridiculed the government’s announcement on infrastructure pipeline and pointed that the government has announced the same special fund for infrastructure on three different occasions.

The former finance minister said there are no criteria and goals for the monetization scheme. “We are going to raise ₹1.54 lakh crore every year—can this be a sole goal to sell assets? You don’t embark upon the exercise without consulting stakeholders. This is all hatched in secrecy in this wonderful organization called Niti Aayog,” said Chidambaram.

He also stated that the National infrastructure pipeline is a project of ₹100 lakh crore. “How can you match ₹100 lakh crore with ₹6 lakh crore in 5 years?

Rahul Gandhi, often accused the BJP government of helping a chosen few industrialists, reiterated the same charges and said “It took 70 years to build this massive infrastructure. People’s money was involved but now these are being sold to 3-4 people. As soon as these become monopolies, employment opportunities would be shrunk. Small business, medium business will not exist,” he claimed.

Rahul Gandhi compared the government’s move with British Raj’s East India Company and said, “Modi believes large monopolies can save this country. You will see a dramatic increase in anger and violence. Modi is an instrument for doing some particular job for these people.”

Netizens on social media are furious and here are some of the raging comments: