Rahul Gandhi cornered the government on US trade deal, Nirmala Sitharaman mentioned UPA and Sharm-el-Sheikh joint statement.

Tezzbuzz Desk- Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday launched a scathing attack on the central government in the Lok Sabha regarding the trade deal with America. Rahul Gandhi said, “You sold the country. Aren’t you ashamed of it? You sold Mother India.”

Responding to this, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reminded Congress and Rahul Gandhi of the Sharm-al-Sheikh joint statement. He said that in reality it was Congress that sold the country, which kept ignoring the interests of the government, farmers and the poor.

Nirmala Sitharaman said, “The same people who were negotiating with Pakistan in Sharm-el-Sheikh are now advising us. In 2009, the UPA government had weakened India’s security posture in the agreement with Pakistan.”

The Sharm-al-Sheikh Agreement was signed in 2009 between Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister of Pakistan Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani. In this meeting, both countries recognized terrorism as the main threat and discussed the need to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai 26/11 attacks to justice.

According to the agreement, both countries promised to share real-time information about any terrorist threat in future. But after this Pakistan used this joint statement against India and alleged that India was supporting Baloch rebels.

Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar also mentioned the matter and said that Pakistan has always tried to promote terrorism in India and misused the agreement signed in Sharm-el-Sheikh for its political gains.

Rahul Gandhi put the government in the dock over the trade deal with America, while Nirmala Sitharaman hit back at the Congress citing the policies of the UPA government and the agreement with Pakistan. “Till date no one can sell India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will never do so,” he said. This controversy gave rise to a heated debate between Congress and BJP in Parliament.