‘PM Modi has decided to prostrate before Donald Trump’
New Delhi: The Opposition on Wednesday stepped up its attack on the government over the MDR regime for UPI and demanded a rollback of the move, with Rahul Gandhi alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to “prostrate” before US President Donald Trump.
The leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha urged the PM to “stop lying down in front of the US, have a spine, stand up” and rollback the “UPI tax”.
The Congress accused the government of giving in to a US demand to get rid of zero Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) and charge for UPI. In a swipe at Modi, the party said he has “redefined NOTA – Narendra’s Ongoing Trump Appeasement”.
The government on Tuesday introduced a 0.4 per cent fee on transfers worth more than Rs 2,000 made to merchants through UPI from October 15, while explicitly ring-fencing everyday person-to-person transactions as well as small payments from any charge.
Gandhi said, “(Former prime minister) Indira (Gandhi) ji was once asked whether she leans left or right and her response was ‘I don’t lean left, I don’t lean right, I stand straight’. Modi ji has a completely different concept, he is neither left nor right, he has decided to lie down straight and prostrate himself in front of Donald Trump.”
“He (Modi) has put a tax on every single Indian person by taxing UPI and giving a huge amount of money to the United States,” Gandhi said in a video in which he is seen standing before a portrait of his grandmother Indira Gandhi.
“Modi ji, rollback the UPI tax. Now,” he said in a post on X accompanying the video.
In Patna, RJD MP Manoj Jha also flayed the government over the issue.
“This is not a decision taken of their own accord, with their own wisdom. When we talk about American imperialism, this is like bowing down before it. They’ve now given a clarification, below Rs 2,000,” he said..
“First they moved people to digital transactions. Now see how many things this will affect and in what ways,” he said.
“But what’s important is that we took this decision at the behest of some visible power. It’s part of a broader management,” Jha alleged.
Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary D Raja demanded that the government withdraw the “anti-people decision”.
“Charges on UPI usage, a publicly developed payment technology, are deeply unfortunate and have been brought under US pressure,” Raja claimed in a post on X.
He said the government claims that consumers will not be charged, but experience shows that merchants always find ways to pass new costs on to consumers.
“UPI was built as public digital infrastructure to provide simple, interoperable and low-cost payments. It must not be weakened to accommodate foreign corporate interests. The Modi government must withdraw this anti-people decision and keep UPI free,” the CPI leader said.
