A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi targeted the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance with an acronym of “SCAM”, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday hit back at the PM saying, “Whenever Modi is nervous, he starts giving labels PPE, ABC, DEF, GHY. Now this SCAM... A person who is in the wrong sees scam everywhere because this is his reality.” SP president and UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who was addressing a joint rally with Rahul in Kanpur, said the acronym SCAM stood for “save the country from Amit Shah and Modi”.
Urging UP voters to ensure that the outcome of Bihar election is repeated, where BJP was trounced by a coalition led by Nitish Kumar, Rahul said, “S, in fact, stands for ‘service’, C for ‘courage’, A for ‘ability’ and M for ‘modesty’.”
Attacking Modi over note ban, the Congress V-P said, “Demonetisation has hurt the poor most. Do not raise these slogans (denouncing Modi) but vote for Congress-SP alliance and ensure that Modi never utters the name of Uttar Pradesh again, like he forgot to say Bihar after the Assembly elections there.”
Rahul said that Modi is “afraid of the youths, who will give a befitting response to him in UP elections as he gave the slogan of Make in India, made promises, but provided no jobs”.
Akhilesh Yadav, who reached an hour ahead of Rahul, also took on the Prime Minister for his yesterday’s SCAM taunt, where Modi had asked people of Uttar Pradesh to “rid the State of SCAM: S for Samajwadi (party), C for Congress, A for Akhilesh (Yadav) and M for Mayawati”.
The SP leader said asked why Modi has included ‘bua’ Mayawati’s party as it was BJP which had thrice formed Governments with the BSP. He alleged that the Modi Government has given nothing to the people but false promises in its tenure while the Samajwadi Party had delivered in Uttar Pradesh. Hailing the Congress-SP tie-up, Akhilesh said, “A true friend is one who is big-hearted. If you befriend a mean person, you will only suffer. We had an alliance with the Congress because both of us are large hearted. We are confident of forming a Government in the State to complete the work left unfinished.”
Akhilesh too raised the note ban issue, saying BJP should tell the country how much black money has been unearthed. “No black money has returned, but people have died while standing in queues outside banks and ATMs. We gave Rs 2 lakh to families of these victims but the Centre did nothing,” he said.
Rahul targeted the Prime Minister during most of his speech saying the people have realised the reality of the note ban. “Modi thinks that he is the only one in the country and the world who knows everything and speaks the truth while the people of India are foolish and ignorant.”
“One man cannot run this country. He cannot keep manufacturing falsehood,” the Congress leader said and alleged that Modi has been working to benefit his “fifty friends” like Mallaya who have taken loans from banks. “Modiji is taking care of rich friends because during elections they give him money to spend,” he alleged.
He said the SP-Congress alliance Government will work for youths, farmers, poor and the women.
The BJP had stepped up its attack on the SP-Congress alliance in recent days with party chief Amit Shah saying on Saturday that two “good-looking princes” involved in corruption are now out to mislead the people of Uttar Pradesh. “Both are ‘khoobsurat shehzade’ (beautiful princes) who are out to mislead the public.
“Mother is fed up with one and father is fed up with the other. How will they help Uttar PradeshIJ One has looted the country while the other has looted the state. Beware of them,” Shah said in Mathura.
Akhilesh listed the steps taken by his Government for Kanpur. He claimed that the BJP had carried out the stone laying ceremony for Ghatampur power project again although he and UPA Minister Sri Prakash Jaiswal had already done it earlier. “But the work on the project has not started till now,” he said.