Expressing confidence for the Congress party’s victory in the upcoming Assembly polls in Gujarat, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) vice-president Rahul Gandhi began his three-day long tour of Saurashtra region from Dwarkadhish Temple in Dwarka on Monday.
The Congress vice-president will cover 24 out of 57 Assembly constituencies in the Saurashtra region during his three-day visit. Gandhi is expected to visit six districts including Devbhoomi Dwarka, Jamnagar, Surendranagar, Rajkot, Morbi and Botad. Interestingly, the oldest political party could manage to win seven Assembly seats out of the 24, which would be visited by the party’s senior leader.
Rahul who would cover nearly 250 km from Dwarka by road as part of Gujarat Congress’s campaign ‘Navsarjan Gujarat’ — Resurgent Gujarat — launched scathing attack on BJP led NDA Government at the Centre as well as Rupani Government in Gujarat over the issues related to farmers, unemployment, demonetisation and Goods & Services Tax (GST).
‘’BJP Government can waive loans of its millionaire industrialists friends but wouldn’t give relief to farmers. Yogi Adityanath Government in Uttar Pradesh was forced to write off farmers’ loan just because Congress party created pressure on them,’’ claimed the scion of Gandhi-Nehru family. Challenging various provisions under GST, he said that the Central Government didn’t bother about difficulties being faced by small traders post GST implementation.
Terming the much talked about ‘Gujarat Model’ as bubble he said the development model of Gujarat was nothing but snatching away lands from the poor farmers and distributing the same to handful of affluent industrialists.
Strategically, Gandhi made it a point to stop at small villages as his cavalcade moved towards Jamnagar where he would have night halt. He stopped at villages in Devbhoomi Dwarka and Jamnagar districts including Bhatiya, Nadana and Hanjarapar. The 47-year-old politician tried to strike a chord with the villagers by riding a bullock cart. He tried to convince the people that the BJP Governments at centre as well as in Gujarat failed to provide appropriate minimum support prices for their crops including groundnut and cotton.
On the first day of his three day tour, Rahul travelled almost 125 km by roads covering even smaller villages having hardly 1,000 population. At coastal Vasai village he interacted with the members of fishermen community as well as farmers and assured them to resolve their issues if the Congress party would come into power in Gujarat. late in the evening the Congress VP had interactive session with traders in Jamnagar’s Chandi Bazar area. He met senior Gujarat Congress leaders over the dinner at Jamnagar circuit house where he had night halt.
Over the visit of AICC vice-president, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani remarked that wherever Rahul would visit in the State, BJP would definitely win. Even Gujarat BJP was also quick to react on the senior leader of Opposition party claiming that very few people turned out in the Rahul Gandhi’s roadshow.
Making mockery of Gandhi, the Gujarat BJP spokesman Bharat Pandya said that the Congress leaders visit to Saurashtra region would be beneficial to his party as under his leadership, Congress lost as many as 28 elections.