Rahul remains the butt of BJP attack

AMETHI: Rahul Gandhi’s twin identity as local MP and the Congress chief spearheading the campaign in poll-bound states of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh came in handy for the BJP, whose leaders targeted him from the Amethi stage on Monday.

As union textile minister Smriti Irani accompanied by nearly half a dozen ministers continued to build on her association with Congress chief’s constituency from where she is widely tipped to re-contest in 2019 elections, the ministers sought to build the pitch for the BJP in pollbound states. In fact, every now and then Irani would leapfrog from Amethi and link her attack with generous references of pollbound states, with BJP cadres qui ckly recording and transferring edited portions of her attack to be played up through social media.

“Ab ye chalega Madhya Pradesh main (now this will run in Madhya Pradesh),” one of them was heard saying. “The BJP is rattled by Congress chief’s attack on PM Modi over Rafale. He has successfully exposed BJP top leaders as ones who speak without credibility and this has made BJP desperate,” said Amethi Congress chief Yogendra Mishra.

“Rahulji has been busy spreading lies in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan abusing and accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He refuses to see the development that has happened in the country over the last four plus years,” said Smriti Irani.

Later, when her attention was drawn towards the recent Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) controversy, when a wrong map of the country was displayed during a function, she said, the query should be put across to the Congress chief. “The Congress chief supported those who made the infamous Bharat tere tukde honge remark, the Congress party described naxalites as revolutionaries in Chhattisgarh and he must be asked as to what message is he trying to give,” Irani asked.