Rahul confident Congress will win MP polls, hits out at Modi
Congress president Rahul Gandhi yesterday exuded confidence that the party will return to power in Madhya Pradesh.
He also tore into Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “empty slogans” that Gandhi said have not helped farmers, women and small traders.
“The government that the Congress will form in the state will be responsive to farmers, small traders, women, and party workers,” Gandhi said at a public meeting in Datia.
The Congress has been out of power since 2004 and is keen on dislodging Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state. The state goes to polls on November 28.
Gandhi, on a two-day visit of Madhya Pradesh ahead of the assembly polls, reiterated his promise that the Congress, if elected, will waive off farm loans within 10 days of government formation. He also promised to open a food processing unit in every district where farmers can profitably sell their produce.
He mocked the prime minister and the ruling BJP for paying lip service to the cause of women’s safety.
“When BJP MLA (Kuldeep Singh Sengar) rapes a girl in Unnao, the UP chief minister and the prime minister tried to save him. Neither was he expelled from the party nor did the PM speak a word about him. The actual slogan should be ‘Beti Padhao aur Beti ko BJP ke MLA se Bachao’ (Educate your daughter and save her from BJP MLA),” Gandhi said.
Gandhi’s attack on Modi and his government comes in the midst of a raging #MeToo campaign in which federal minister M J Akbar has been accused of a long string of sexual harassments.
Akbar has rejected the allegations as “wild and baseless” and has launched defamation cases, starting with journalist Priya Ramani, who first accused him of the sexual misdemeanour.
In Madhya Pradesh, too, women are afraid of moving out of their homes as was the case across the country, Gandhi said.
Gandhi reminded the people that the Congress-led government had waived off farm loans worth Rs700bn.
By contrast, the Modi government had in the last four years “waived loans worth Rs3.5tn of 15-20 rich industrialists”.
“He (Modi) has place only for industrialists in his heart, not for women, Dalits and farmers. He stays quiet if anything happens to them.”
Gandhi also raked up the Rafale fighter jet deal, alleging that the offset contract was taken away from state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and given to a private company.
The Congress chief earlier in the day accused Modi of insulting the people of India.
“The prime minister said from the ramparts of the Red Fort that the nation had been asleep for 70 years,” he said. “This is an insult to every section of the society.”
On August 15, Modi criticised the Congress that has ruled for long years since India’s Independence in 1947. He had said that India was earlier a sleeping elephant, which had woken up and started running.
US President Donald Trump finds India and China competing with the US, Gandhi said. “We have reached this stage because of the contribution of farmers, workers, small businessmen and women over the past 70 years.”
Gandhi reached Gwalior by a special plane yesterday and then went to the Pitambara Peeth temple in Datia, accompanied by party leaders Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia.