Congress candidate from Vadodara lok Sabha constituency, Madhusudan Mistry, who is contesting against BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, said that for him the contest against Modi is usual like any other election and there is nothing special in it.
Mistry, while addressing his first ever Press conference in Gujarat on Saturday after he replaced Narendra Rawat, who was earlier declared candidate by the Congress, said that the Congress would win more seats than the BJP in Gujarat.
The All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary came down heavily on his opponent Modi for his recent jibes like “Pakistani agent”, “Shehazada”, etc against his political rivals and blamed that the Gujarat Chief Minister was trying to widen communal split to secure votes.
Reacting on Modi’s comment on the Congress’ decision to remove Rawat (who is also Dalit) Mistry said that he was surprised to see that a person aspiring for the top position is trying to provoke emotion for vote-bank politics.
Replying a question on which issues he would contest against Modi, he said that there were plenty of issues to counter him. “I would tell people about so-called development model of Gujarat’s Chief Minister. Besides, how Gujarat is lagging behind on social indicators like human development index, education etc,” he claimed, adding that Modi Government is camouflaging information. Even after utilising the RTI it is next to impossible to get information from the State Government.
When asked how voters of Vadodara were different from that of in Varanasi, Mistry said that the Gujarat city is the cultural capital of the State and Center of Excellence (due to MS University) and in the case of Banaras, it is the ancient holy city and people are educated there. “At both the places, people would vote against Modi. In Vadodara, he will lose because I am contesting against him,” said the confident Congress candidate.
Mistry, who is visiting Vadodara on Sunday to kick-start poll campaign said that he is not an ‘imported’ candidate as he availed his master degree from the famous Maharaja Sayajirao University.