PM antiDalit, serves rich: Rahul
EYE ON POLLS Continues to attack Modi over Rafale deal, Mallya
DATIA/DABRA/GWALIOR: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being anti-Dalit and serving the interests of the rich, and promised the waiver of farm loans (within 10 days of his party coming to power in the state), jobs for the young, and bank credit for entrepreneurs.
Gandhi was on his second tour of the state this month – he visited Morena and Jabalpur on October 6 — and, following a tour-stop plan he put into action in Gujarat last year, started the day with a visit to the Pitambara Peeth temple in Datia.
Madhya Pradesh, ruled by a BJP government which has been in power since 2003, and by a chief minister who has been in office for 13 years, goes to the polls on November 28. The results will be announced on December 11.
Apart from public meetings at Datia and Dabra, Gandhi, accompanied by state Congress chief Kamal Nath and state campaign committee head Jyotiraditya Scindia held an impressive road show in Gwalior followed by an election meet in evening.
During the public meetings, the Congress chief kept up his attack on Modi over an offset contract won by Anil Ambani’s defence company in the Rafale deal and the alleged bank frauds by Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Méhul Choksi.
Gandhi also took on the Prime Minister on issues such as agrarian distress, women’s safety, the price rise, corruption, the waiver of bank loans to industrialists, an increase in non-performing assets (NPAs), and unemployment, issues he has made his own in many of his recent speeches.
The Congress president was on a two-day election tour of Gwalior-Chambal belt, which sends 34 legislators to the 231member (230 elected and one nominated) Madhya Pradesh assembly. In the 2013 assembly elections, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 20 seats in the region, while the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won 12 and 2 seats, respectively. The Congress was in talks with the BJP for a pre-poll alliance, but these fell through.
In a region where the caste is a crucial factor with the BSP having some influence, Gandhi spoke about death of Dalit activist and PhD scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad in 2016. “Rohit only wanted to study, but he was oppressed and forced to commit suicide by forces you all know.”
In Modi’s rule, Gandhi alleged, Dalits were being beaten up in Gujarat, minorities were being lynched, and tribals, suppressed. He also countered the BJP’s oftrepeated charge that the Congress had done nothing in the past 70 years, saying that the BJP was insulting “our forefathers, who toiled hard to make what the country is today”.
A united Congress this time is hoping to wrest power from the BJP, which has been ruling the state for 15 consecutive years since 2003. “There is a visible undercurrent, not of 220 volts but 440 volts in favour of the Congress,” Gandhi claimed.
The Congress president hit out at the Prime Minister, alleging that the country’s watchman was only “protecting the interests of 10-15 crony capitalist friends and ignoring the concerns” of farmers, unemployed youth and women. He also attacked chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan over the Vyapam, mining and e-tendering cases.
Nath said the people of the state were “feeling relieved” with the model code of conduct coming into force that put a stop to the chief minister’s spree of poll sops. “The chief minister had in all made 21,000 announcements, which have no meaning. He has turned Madhya Pradesh into the number one state in terms of atrocities on women and farmers’ suicides,” he added.
Scindia took a dig at Chouhan’s ‘Jan Aashirwad Yatra’, saying he has failed on all fronts. “There are around 10 million unemployed youth in Madhya Pradesh; the state has become the rape capital of India; and farmers are crying not only for adequate minimum support price but also for water and electricity,” he said.
At Dabra, Scindia recalled that his father Madhavrao Scindia organised a convention in the area in 1993 to unite the party, which later on went on to win the elections. “The BJP rule has been one of corruption in every sphere and where the farmer has been oppressed, and shot at when he asked for his rights,” said Scindia, referring to the killing of six protesting farmers in police firing in Mandsaur on June 6, 2017.
Political analyst LS Hardenia said Congress will have to win the maximum number of seats from this region if it wants to form a government in Madhya Pradesh.