On 12th November (Thursday), Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the India Today Group’s Kisan Tak Bharat Agriculture Conference at the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. While smart farming, agricultural modernisation, and farmer empowerment were the key topics of his speech, he also spoke about an interesting incident from his time as Gujarat’s chief minister, taking a sharp dig at Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and the Congress.
He revealed how the state’s top rating had left the Congress government fuming, and one of India’s leading economists, late Bibek Debroy, had to bear the brunt of the ire. He had to leave the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (RGICS) and blamed Sonia Gandhi for the decision. RGICS is a part of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, helmed by her.
“Nowadays, some people pull the Constitution out of their pockets. The country understands very well what they are doing. They seem to think that the nation’s Constitution and democracy are sitting in their pocket. Even while not being in power, they remain intoxicated with the mindset of power. But when these very people were in power, what were their actions like? Let me narrate a small incident,” PM Modi stated without taking any names.
He further shared, “You may remember that there was a time when people in the media used to rank the best-performing states. In one such ranking related to the economy, Gujarat was ranked number one, and at that time I was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. The institution that gave Gujarat the number one ranking was named after a former Prime Minister of India. That hint is enough; you can find the name yourselves. This ranking was based on research conducted by some of the country’s most respected economists.”
Cooked darbaris and Pappu Gandhi 🔥😂😂😂😂 https://t.co/46dd5w5OWh
— desi mojito (@desimojito) November 12, 2026
PM Modi added, “But the people sitting in power in Delhi did not like Gujarat receiving that recognition. They formally instructed those conducting the research that things could not continue this way. They said that from then onward, no report could be published without their approval first. That was the situation then, and today those very people go around delivering lectures on tolerance and democracy.”
The incident dates back to 2005, when the Congress-led UPA-I was in power in New Delhi and Sonia Gandhi was the coalition’s chairman. Debroy, who passed away in 2014, was the RGICS’s director at the time. He later became a member of NITI Aayog and the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council under the Modi government.
“It was about a paper that I and a colleague undertook called An Economic Freedom Rating of States in India. It was published in 2004, and ranked Gujarat No. 1. No one objected until 2005, when the municipal elections happened in Gujarat, and all hell broke loose. I was told that henceforth, any publication by the RGICS has to be politically vetted. This was sent to me, signed by Mrs Sonia Gandhi, who was the chairperson, on a standard green sheet of paper,” Debroy disclosed in an interview with India Today in 2015. As a result, he had to resign.
Debroy recalled another similar occurrence which took place in 2002 after he had invited Seshadri Chari, who was Organiser’s editor, to a conference on Indian politics. He mentioned, “There were people who spoke on behalf of Mrs Gandhi, not herself, and said, ‘Please do not invite Seshadri Chari.’ I stuck to my guns. It did not cross the threshold,” while talking to Karan Thapar, who hosted To The Point.
Notably, PM Modi’s jibe comes against the backdrop of Sonia Gandhi’s recently released memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, which has courted controversy for its glaring errors, distorting historical facts, downplaying the violence unleashed by her party members, and peddling misinformation to appease her Muslim vote bank.
