Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today made a valiant attempt to dent the saffron camp's campaign of seeking vote in the name of one man, indirectly referring to the urge of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking power, and said that one man cannot rule the entire country. Gandhi was addressing an election rally at Chandwe under Kanke Assembly constituency.
"We want to bestow power to the people of Jharkhand and provide 33 per cent reservation to the people of Jharkhand, 50 per cent reservation in panchayati raj bodies. We want that the people of Jharkhand run this State. One man cannot rule this country," maintained the Congress leader.
Gandhi scion continued with the Congress' report card on the six months of NDA's rule after Modi rose to power and projected that no significant achievement will be visible in next six months.
He also took a dig at the Modi-led NDA government and debased the central government for allegedly tweaking the pro-poor policies framed under the 10-year rule of United Progressive Alliance especially related to jal, jungle and jameen. The Congress vice-president labeled the fight between the Congress and the Bhartiya Janta Party as a fight between two ideologies competing for different ends.
"Our view is that people of this country are powerful, informed and knowledgeable. Our maximum effort is that we put power into the hands of youth, women, farmers and labourers of the country. If you look at our programmes of last 10 years then you will see that in every programme we have bestowed people with more power," said the Congress leader.
Campaigning for the candidates of all the five constituencies under Ranchi district scheduled to go to polls on December 9, the Gandhi scion harped on the flagship policies of UPA-Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Right to Information Act and Forest Rights Act-and eulogized benefits of the laws promulgated during the UPA's reign.
Gandhi attempted to convince the gathering of nearly 10,000 about the pro-people ideologies of the Congress by blaming the BJP of weakening and downsizing the scope of programmes launched for the benefit of the people.
"We brought bills for Adivasis for returning them their land and awarded them the right on forest produce… they have only weakened the land acquisition bill in last six months and in coming days they will weaken RTI. Wherever we have provided power to people they are trying to take it way," asserted Gandhi.
He added that the Congress introduced land Acquisition Bill making people more involved in the purpose of acquisition of land and addressing the issue of proper compensation to the people affected in the acquisition process. The Congress vice-president however accused BJP of stalling the historic land acquisition bill secretly and claimed that the oldest political party exerted pressure to make the saffron brigade yield on proposed bill. He accused the BJP of weakening the democracy by making an attempt to concentrate power in one authority and seeking vote in the name of one man.