New Delhi, February 19 Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former AICC chief Rahul Gandhi will meet with leaders from five states and a Union Territory on Friday as part of their efforts to launch a targeted campaign against the India-US interim trade deal and its "adverse impact" on farmers, sources said.
The Congress leadership will hold a meeting with leaders from Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Bihar to finalize the details of the campaign, they said.
Earlier this week, Gandhi intensified his criticism of the government over the deal, posing a series of questions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and alleging that "we are witnessing a betrayal" of the country's farmers.
Gandhi, who has been attacking the BJP-led government and accusing it of selling out through the deal, has said the issue concerns the future of the country and asked whether India is allowing another nation to gain a long-term hold over its agriculture industry.
The Congress has alleged that Modi has "surrendered" to US President Donald Trump in agreeing to the deal, which, it claimed, will "devastate" the livelihoods of crores of farmers across states and sacrifice India's energy security, digital sovereignty, and economic self-reliance.
The Congress has slammed the Centre, saying that trade agreements should not become a path to slavery by "sacrificing a country's sovereignty," and asserted that national interest cannot be mortgaged under the guise of a trade pact.
Last week, Gandhi had accused the government of cheating cotton farmers and textile exporters and said the agreement is likely to inflict serious damage on both sectors.
He had also claimed that the trade deal, which now favours Bangladesh through zero per cent tariffs, will either finish the textile sector or the cotton farming or both, and the entire country knows this.