The war of words between the Congress and BJP continued to simmer as Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, taking a cue from her brother Rahul Gandhi, attacked the Gujarat model of development and accused Narendra Modi of selling thousands of acres of land cheap to his “friends”. This invited strong reactions from a string of BJP leaders, who asked her to disclose the “model” under which her husband Robert Vadra’s business grew multi-fold even during the recession.
The BJP said it was not making any personal attack by raising the issue of Vadra’s land deals in Haryana and promised a fair probe saying it will not be “personality centric” but “law centric”. It challenged the Congress leadership to debate the “land versus land issue” threadbare. BJP leader Arun Jaitley said the probe into Vadra’s land deals will be fair and will not be driven by personality of the individual concerned. “We will be fair. We will be law centric. We won’t be personality centric,” Jaitley said when asked whether there will a fair probe against Vadra if the BJP comes to power.
Priyanka who was campaigning for her mother Congress president Sonia Gandhi at Raebareli went all-out in her attack on the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate by saying “thousands of acres” of land has been given to “friends” of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi at “throwaway prices” and accused him of treating the country as a “classroom”. She also took a dig at him for his ‘ABCD’ and ‘RSVP’ jibes and said he should instead tell the people what he planned to do for them. Priyanka said that people possess an unmatched understanding and they knew about Modi’s Gujarat model of development “where you (Modi) gave thousands of acres of land to your friends.” Modi had recently described UPA’s governance as “RSVP model” in which a person was able to multiply his earnings from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 400-crore in five years.
Giving his own meaning to RSVP, he said it stood for “Rahul, Sonia, Vadra and Priyanka”. He had also attacked the Congress saying ‘ABCD’ has become a symbol of corruption by Congress party with ‘A’ referring to Adarsh scam and ‘B’ denoting Bofors etc. Stung by a barrage of attacks on her family, Priyanka stepped up her counter attack by saying Modi should tell the people what the condition of farmers and workers was under the Gujarat model or what he had done for women, she said.
“Kabhi ABCD, kabhi RSVP. Aur kabhi da se desh aur ka se kouva. Ba se bandh bhi toh kariye. (Sometimes ABCD, sometimes RSVP. At other times it is D for desh (country) and C for crow. Now you should B for bandh (stop) all this). “You are not addressing a primary school but people of the country,” she said, apparently referring to the jibes that Modi had directed at the UPA and Gandhi family in the past.
She said the Congress’ ideology had always respected the country’s unity and tradition of generosity. Priyanka also made a veiled attack on Modi’s close aide Amit Shah. “The public understands your clean politics, an example of which yesterday stood by your side waving to the people,” she said, apparently referring to Shah’s presence alongside Modi when he went to file his nomination papers in Varanasi on Thursday.
She also said the understanding of the people surpassed the egos of leaders. Reacting sharply to Priyanka’s charges, the BJP’s chief media coordinator, Ravi Shankar Prasad challenged the Congress for a debate on the “land versus land” issue claiming that in its case land was allotted to the industry for promotion of employment, increasing production and Gross State Domestic Product, but it was “allotted for personal profit” in the case of the ruling party.
“Congress leaders raise question over the development model of Gujarat. My question to Priyanka Gandhi is that when the country was passing through the recession, how come her husband’s business model was shining,” Prasad said in lucknow. He said: “Priyanka must explain how a person can make Rs300-crore in three years by investing rupees one to two lakh.” Another party leader Uma Bharti, who had sparked a controversy by saying that
Vadra will go to jail after the elections, said on Friday: “The law is equal for all. If he has committed any fraud, he will go to jail, otherwise not.” Prasad said that while Modi talks of removing inflation, corruption, unemployment and insecurity, Sonia, Rahul, Priyanka, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati, Nitish Kumar and lalu Prasad all say “stop Modi, remove Modi”.