Stepping up his onslaught against Narendra Modi, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said on Sunday that the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate would have “sidelined” even Atal Bihari Vajpayee like he dealt with his “guru” lK Advani and veteran leader Jaswant Singh, had the former Prime Minister continued to be in public life at this juncture.
Addressing an election rally at Karauli in Rajasthan, Rahul said, “Advani and Jaswant Singh have been sidelined… (Atal Bihari) Vajpayeeji would have faced a similar situation, had he been in public life at this juncture”.
Speaking in a similar vein at another election rally that he addressed at the BKC ground in north-central Mumbai in the night, Rahul turned his focus on the manner in which Modi had “sidelined” party’s veteran leader and his “guru” Advani.
“Advaniji was like a guru to him (Modi). He (Modi) sidelined Advaniji and told him that this is not your place now. He brought Adani in his place and told the industrialist, we need you. He gave Adani 45,000 acres of land at a nominal rate of Rs 1 per metre,” the Congress vice-president said.
Ridiculing Modi for his “chowkidar” comment, Rahul said, “Modi says ‘make me the chowkidar of the country and give me keys of the country’. let me explain to you the manner in which he performed his job as a chowkidar in Gujarat. He handed over 45,000 acres of land to one industrialist”
Rahul went onto tear apart Modi for the latter’s Gujarat model of development, “toffee model” of development and BJP’s “India Shining” campaign. “In Gujarat, textile industry is shut down; diamond industry workers are going hungry without jobs. One out of two children are malnourished. The Gujarat Government poverty line is mere Rs 11 a day. The SCs and STs get just five per cent of budgetary allocation. Still, he (Modi) says he has created Gujarat Model of development”.
Rahul also hit out at the Modi for taking credit” for changing the face of Gujarat. “He talks as if nothing happened in Gujarat for 60 years prior to his advent as the Chief Minister. He projects a picture that there was no development till he became a Chief Minister. That it was he who transformed the face of Gujarat. But the fact remains people of Gujarat had during the last 60 years given their sweat and blood for the development of Gujarat. But still Modi claims that people did nothing and that it was he has taken Gujarat to a position where it is today,” he said at his rally in Mumbai.
Rahul was addressing the election rally at BKC ground in place of Congress president and his mother Sonia Gandhi who could not address rallies in Mumbai, Dhule and Nandurbar, owing to her indisposition. While Rahul addressed the rally in Mumbai in place of Sonia Gandhi, the Congress deputed party’s senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Raj Babbar to address other rallies. NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who was to share the platform with Sonia Gandhi, skipped the Mumbai rally addressed by Rahul, after it was announced that the Congress president was not making it to Mumbai.
Rahul listed the achievements of the UPA Government during the last 10 years in the form of various right-based schemes. “We have taken 15 crore people out of poverty in the last 10 years. The Congress is a party for the weak, poor and the farmers. There is a difference between us and the Opposition. We care about all they do politics for a select few. They talk about Gujarat development, we talk about poor and downtrodden and giving rights,” he said.
Speaking specially of the development work done for Mumbai, Rahul said that the Congress-led DF Government had already given infrastructure projects like Mono rail, eastern express freeway, Bandra-Worli sea link and Chembur-Santa Zruz double decker highway. “As we did in New Delhi, we will soon be giving Metro to Mumbai,” he said. Attacking Modi on the women empowerment issue, Rahul charged that the Gujarat Chief Minister had misused the police machinery to “tap” the phone of a woman.
“And the BJP puts up posters expressing its commitment to women empowerment. Modi should know that women of India do not the empowerment that Modi is promising. They have enough power. What the women need is some respect,” he said. On the UPA’s plans for women, Rahul said that his government, if voted to power once again, would set 2,000 exclusive police stations for women, 25 per cent reservations for women in police jobs and 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and Assemblies. “Women reservations will be our first priority when we return to power at the Centre,” he said.
At the Karuli rally, Rahul said, “A group of Sikh farmers from Gujarat told me that their forefathers migrated from Pakistan to Gujarat and they put in their hard work and efforts to make the land allotted to them fertile. Now, Gujarat Government officials have asked them to leave the State terming them as outsiders. The same treatment was meted out to senior leaders in BJP”.