Wrapping up his two-day Amethi tour, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday exuded confidence of reviving the party in Uttar Pradesh and claimed that the next chief minister of the state would be from his party as he had given his sister Priyanka Vadra Gandhi and Jyotiraditya Scindia the target of ensuring that the party forms the next government in UP.
He, however, continued his tirade against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying people were frustrated that the Prime Minister had fooled them by making tall and false promises.
He also accused Modi of ‘destroying’ constitutional institutions to protect his party’s illegal interests.
“Gali gali mein shor hai, chowkidar chor hai. (Its common knowledge that the chowkidar is a thief). The above charge has been proved as the government says that it has no money to waive farm loans. On the other hand, his industrialist friends get sops and one Nirav Modi fled with funds of the poor and MNREGA,” Rahul alleged.
“Our PM swears by God and then dishes out numerous lies to fool people. Where are the ‘achhey din’ he had promised?” Rahul said.
Addressing a gathering in Amethi on Thursday, Rahul hit out at the Centre over the Rafale fighter jet deal, saying that the government paid Rs 1,600 crore per aircraft when it’s cost was just Rs 526 crore during the United Progressive Alliance regime.
“Our PM talked to the French counterpart and forced him to give Rs 30,000 crore deal to a private company in the country.”
The Congress chief further said, “When the CBI director said that he would probe the PM’s involvement in corruption, he was removed from the office at midnight. But while he was reinstated by the court, the top CBI officer was forced to leave his job.”
Speaking on goods and services tax (GST), Rahul said that it was the Congress which mooted the concept of GST but the Bharatiya Janata Party divided it in five parts thus encouraging corruption and other irregularities.
“The imposition of GST has resulted in unemployment in the country. Private companies and the PM’s friends are getting their products manufactured in China thus denying the right of jobs to the Indians,” the Congress chief alleged.
“The BJP people are spreading hatred in the name of religion, caste and region. They get people of UP and Bihar thrown out of Gujarat and pit Hindus against Muslims. Modi means hatred. He is in fact the symbol of hatred. We will remove Modi in 2019 and no one can stop it,” a charged Rahul said.
“I have conveyed to Priyanka (Vadra Gandhi) and Jyotiraditya Scindia that we have to form governments at the Centre and in UP this time at any cost,” Rahul informed.
Amid sloganeering, Rahul announced that once the party came to power at the Centre, Amethi and Rae Bareli would get food parks, national highways and paper mills.
“In Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, we are setting up food processing plants in large numbers to help farmers get good price of their produce. Such things will also happen in Amethi and Rae Bareli. My sister and I will work 24 hours for you,” he said.
After his two-day visit, Rahul left for New Delhi via Lucknow on Thursday evening.
Earlier in the morning, Rahul visited a local Shiva temple after meeting party workers at a guest house.
Addressing a public meeting in Salon area, the Congress chief termed himself, his sister and mother Sonia Gandhi as ‘soldiers’ for the people of the two constituencies.
While Rahul Gandhi won the 2014 parliamentary elections from Amethi, Sonia Gandhi is an MP from adjacent Rae Bareli.
Both fall under the turf carved out for Priyanka Gandhi. Narendra Modi’s Varanasi constituency and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s bastion Gorakhpur are also in eastern UP.