At CII Meet, Modi Minister Piyush Goyal Terms Industry “Anti-National’, Video Taken Down

New Delhi: His party, the BJP, is the largest recipient of corporate donations for seven consecutive years, but Piyush Goyal, one of the key ministers in the Narendra Modi government on Thursday launched a tirade against industry on its own turf, terming India Inc. as going against “national interests”. Goyal was virtually addressing the annual meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Thursday.

The video recording was later pulled down from CII’s YouTube channel, but The Hindu, which reported the news, said it has the recording.

According to The Hindu, the minister was specifically training guns at the Tata Group, and launched a 19-minute “tirade”, leaving all the CEOs sitting in the annual meet “baffled.”

The report said that Goyal, while “repeatedly singling out the 153-year-old Tata group in comments that he said came straight from his heart.”

The minister’s remarks apparently created quite a stir in the corridors of power and “the CII was asked to pull down the video from its YouTube channel. An edited version was uploaded on Thursday night but this was also blocked by Friday evening,” The Hindu report said.

In his address, Goyal, while calling out Tata Sons’ president for infrastructure, defence and aerospace, Banmali Agrawala, “expressed deep anguish that Tata Sons had opposed rules to help consumers framed by his minstryconsumers framed by his Ministry. “Me, Myself, My company — We all need to go beyond this approach,” said Mr. Goyal, who also holds charge of the Ministries of Textiles and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.”

 After the matter became public, some Opposition leaders condemned the “unprovoked” attack on industry by the top Modi minister, wondering if he had “official sanction” to do so. People on Twitter also wondered what spurred the “corporate-friendly” Modi government, whose party, the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) got about Rs 750 crore as corporate donations in 2019-20, as disclosed to the Election Commission.

“I am absolutely flabbergasted at Piyush Goyal's unprovoked attacks on Indian industry. First, he ensured Rajya Sabha did not function at all, and now this bizarre tirade! He couldn’t be speaking without official sanction, could he?” tweeted Congress leader Jairam Ramesh.

In a jibe at industry, which pushed Modi as PM big time, Congress leader Manish Tewari tweeted:  “You reap what you sow INDIA INC Bombay Club 1.0 created NDA/BJP Govt between 2012-14. Threw collective weight behind one individual and not even one party. & now ” @PiyushGoyal terms them anti-national.”

“Union Minister’s unhinged rant at CII meeting. Pressure of working in an underperforming one man show must really be getting to them!”, tweeted Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra.

Shiv Sena MP, Priyanka Chaturvedi, expressed shock at the “kind of language” used by Goyal for India Inc.

“The kind of language used against industry captains & calling their work against nation’s interest is shameful to the core & he is India’s commerce minister...” she tweeted.

Lok Sabha MP and AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi, too, took a dig at Modi’s ‘corporate friends’ and tweeted: “Point is well taken @PiyushGoyal sir but @narendramodi wants to take them into confidence but you want to hold them accountable? How will this work.”