New Delhi, Feb. 12 -- Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday took aim at the India-US trade deal, accusing the government of compromising on national interests and asserting that the INDIA bloc would have negotiated a superior agreement, drawing a sharp response from senior Union ministers. Speaking in the Lok Sabha days after a row over his remarks on former army chief General (retd) M.M Naravane's unpublished memoir, Gandhi also tore into the Union Budget and linked Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri to recently released files by the US Department of Justice, triggering a political firestorm and the warning of a privilege motion against him. Participating in the debate on the Union Budget, Gandhi said the government had undercut India's farmers and textile industry and "handed out" data. "Our farmers have been left to the mercy of massive mechanised American firms.our energy security has been handed over.this is a wholesale surrender. It is a tragedy," Gandhi said. Large chunks of his Lok Sabha speech that touched on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the trade deal and alleged US pressure were expunged late at night by parliamentary authorities. Both inside and outside Parliament, and on X, Gandhi attacked the government on the trade deal. "A helpless PM Modi has surrendered to the US 'chokehold' in the trade deal. Under the pretext of "clearing barriers to digital trade", every move to use our data for our own benefit will be opposed.It's a shame that our Prime Minister has been pressured to hand over India's prime resource to a foreign power," he said on X. His comments drew a furious response from the government. "First of all, no man has taken birth in this universe who can touch or sell India. Secondly, the country has never seen a prime minister better than PM Modi," said parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju, amid disruptions. In the evening, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman hit back. She said the IndiaAI Mission was allocated 2,000 crore rupees in the Budget to keep data within India and enable the country's youth to manage data. She cited this as one of the many indications that Gandhi made allegations against the Budget without reading it. "You are the one who sold India's farmers and the poor. Farmers would have come to the streets if they kept walking with the Congress," she said, referring to the 2013 WTO Bali agreement signed by the UPA-led government. She added that Modi had to fight for India's right and restore procurement of grains from farmers after the agreement in 2014. Further, she criticised former PM Manmohan Singh for hyphenating India and Pakistan during diplomacy with the US during the early 2000s....