In a message to US President Donald Trump, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, said on Wednesday that the US leader must talk to India as an equal. Referring to the India-US trade deal, which he claimed was signed under Trump’s pressure, Rahul said that the US should not treat New Delhi as its servant.

“Please understand that you are going to talk to us as an equal. You are not going to talk to us as if we are your servants,” Rahul said as he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “complete surrender” to the US President.

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The Congress leader said that India would not be made equal to Pakistan. “If President Trump decided that the Pakistan Army Chief was going to have breakfast with him, then we would have something to say about that. Now what has happened? You’ve done a trade deal.”

“The thing that is going to transform India in the 21st century, the thing that is going to make us a superpower in the 21st century, this is what the Modi government has done with our data. We give up control over our digital trade rules. Number two, there is no need for data localisation. Number three, free data flow to the United States. Number four, limit on digital tax. Number five, no need to disclose any source code. The finance minister is smiling. She likes to smile a lot.  20-year free tax holiday to anybody who wants it, to the big tax company. This is what you’ve done on data,” Gandhi added.

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He further told Trump that if he wants to protect the US dollar, then Indian data is the biggest asset that can help him. “You want to protect your dollar, we are your friends, we appreciate you, we want to help you protect your dollar, but please remember that if you want to protect your dollar, the biggest asset that can protect your dollar is lying with the Indian people,” said Rahul Gandhi in his message to the US President.

The Congress leader claimed that the deal Modi signed with the US would hurt 1.5 billion Indians, asserting that no Indian PM would sign such an agreement unless there was a “chokehold” on him.

“We have been buckled on tariffs, we have handed out our data, given up control over digital trade rules, no data localisation,  free data flow to the USA, a limit on digital tax, no source code disclosure, and a 20-year tax holiday. The most valuable asset that India has and will ever have has been handed over. Our farmers have been left to the mercy of mechanised, massive American farms. Our textiles have been wiped out. Bangladesh is now going to wipe out our textile industry, our energy security has been handed over, and we can’t buy oil from whom we want to buy oil from. Now I don’t believe any Indian Prime Minister would do this,” he said in a fiery Lok Sabha speech.

The LoP termed India’s decision to agree to the trade deal “complete surrender” to the US. “It is a tragedy because it is a surrender not just of the Prime Minister. He has surrendered the future of 1.5 billion Indians. He has surrendered the future because he wants to protect the BJP’s financial architecture on which there is a case in the United States.”