New Delhi, Dec 5
Amid the ongoing chaos at several airports across the country, triggered by IndiGo flights cancellations, the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi trained guns at the Centre, holding it accountable for the unprecedented crisis. He said that chaos at airports is the consequence of Modi government's monopoly-driven economic model.

Taking to social media platform X, he wrote: "IndiGo fiasco is the cost of this Govt’s monopoly model. Once again, it’s ordinary Indians who pay the price - in delays, cancellations and helplessness. India deserves fair competition in every sector, not match-fixing monopolies."

He also shared a previously penned article title “A new deal for Indian business”, to elucidate his stance on monopolistic power structures.

"Match-fixing monopoly groups vs fair-play businesses - moment has come to choose freedom over fear," he stated.

The Congress leader also likened the present-day corporate "monopolisation" to colonial-era systems, stating, "INDIA WAS SILENCED by the East India Company. It was silenced not by its business prowess, but by its chokehold. The company choked India by partnering with, bribing. and threatening our more pliant maharajas and nawabs. It controlled our banking, bureaucratic, and information networks. We didn't lose our freedom to another nation; we lost it to a monopolistic corporation that ran a coercive apparatus."

He further said that while the original East India Company is long gone, but fear and monopolisation have resurfaced in modern India.

"The original East India Company wound up over 150 years ago, but the raw fear it then generated is back. A new breed of monopolists have taken its place. They have amassed colossal wealth, even as India has become far more unequal and unfair for everybody else. Our institutions no longer belong to our people, they do the bidding of monopolists. Lakhs of businesses have been decimated and India is unable to generate jobs for her youth. Bharat Mata is mother to all her children. The monopolisation of her resources and power, this blatant denial of the many for the sake of a chosen few, has wounded her," he pointed out.

Making a strong pitch for reforms in corporate sector including aviation, the Congress MP said that government must act as a neutral arbiter, not a facilitator of select corporate interests:

"The government cannot be allowed to support one business at the expense of all others, much less support benami equations in the business system. Government agencies are not weapons to be used to attack and intimidate businesses. That said, I do not believe that fear should be transferred from you to these big monopolists. They are not evil individuals, but simply the outcome of the deficiencies of our societal and political environment. They should get space, and so should you," he said.

"I believe a new deal for progressive Indian business is an idea whose time has come," he wrote in the article penned for a leading daily.

Rahul Gandhi targets Centre over IndiGo flights chaos, calls it result of ‘monopoly model’