Rahul Gandhi was rather pleased with himself on Tuesday. After Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday announced the rollback of a controversial proposal to tax the Employee Provident Fund, the Congress vice-president promptly took credit for the decision.

"I felt middle-class people were being hurt by the government, so I decided to put some pressure on the government...my pressure did work," Gandhi said. "Finally the government was forced to listen to people and roll back the patently unfair tax on EPF."

Outlining his third Budget on February 29, Jaitley had proposed that 60% of withdrawal from contribution to EPF – a retirement benefit scheme for salaried employees – made after April 1 would be subject to tax.

The move had caused confusion and drawn widespread criticism from trade unions, the salaried class and political parties. Rahul Gandhi had demanded that the proposal be scrapped and had said that he would and put pressure on the government which "works for a selected group of industrialists and those with black money."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had then asked the Finance Ministry to defer the plan so that a detailed study on it could be conducted, a reason which Jaitley cited in Parliament on Tuesday.

Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha tweeted that the Modi had "once again caved into pressure exerted by Rahul Gandhi, who was fighting for the common man".

Earlier in the day, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramaniam Swamy's appeared to have correctly predicted Gandhi's reaction to the rollback, referring to him by the unflattering name he has used in the past.

Rahul Gandhi's apparent attempt at political opportunism also got him mocked on social media. Here's a selection: