Shah hits out at Oppn as BJP campaign picks up
Union home minister Amit Shah attacked the Congress on Tuesday, saying the opposition parties wrongly doubted Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the Balakot airstrike on Pakistan on 2019, as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) deployed a raft of senior leaders across 93 constituencies in north and central Gujarat that go to the polls in the second phase of the assembly elections on December 5.
Shah addressed four rallies on Tuesday across constituencies going to polls in the second phase.
Other than Shah, BJP chief JP Nadda, Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal and Delhi BJP MP Manoj Tiwari also addressed rallies. The BJP had employed a similar campaign blitz in the 89 seats that go to the polls in the first phase on December 1, with Modi addressing four rallies in three days.
In Deesa, Shah endorsed the BJP candidate, Praveenbhai Mali, and attacked the Opposition.
“Earlier anyone used to enter our borders and behead our sol
diers and Manmohan Singh kept silent. It was all to placate a particular community. Even after the surgical air strikes, Rahul and Kejriwal started asking for the proof of such air strikes... You just have to see the Pakistani TV to see how devastated they were after the strikes,” he told the audience.
During his rally in Khambhat, Shah accused the Congress of doing everything possible to “insult” Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
“I am surprised that the Congress now praises Sardar Patel. Since my childhood, I have never heard any Congress leader talking about Patel. Instead, they left no stone unturned to insult Patel, right from performing his last rites in an unceremonious manner to ensuring that no monument was built in his memory,” he said.
He also praised the central government for rescuing Indian students from war-torn Ukraine. “35000 students were stuck in Ukraine and everybody was worried, especially their parents. Narendra Modi and called the Ukrainian prime minister and the Russian president and said that my 35,000 students are there.”
Nadda told a public rally in Shehra that the BJP government cared for other backward classes (OBC) and tribespeople in Gujarat. “For the OBCS and tribal people, Congress’s tears and sorrow are not sincere.
While addressing a rally in Bayad, Fadnavis attacked the Congress. “Mahatma Gandhi wanted Congress to quit as a political party and work for social freedom after Independence, but they (Congress) continued their political aspirations to make the poor poorer, spread atrocity, and communal tension in the country.”
The Congress hit back.
“All the BJP leaders don’t have a knowledge of history, including Fadnavis. The history of Congress is parallel with history of the freedom struggle of India,” said Manish Doshi, the party spokesperson.