The Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance responded aggresively to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement of threatening the alliance partners by exposing their ‘horoscope’ (janampatri).
“Modi is doing everything except what a Prime Minister should do,” asserted Congress vice-president Rahul in his repartee. During a joint Press conference with Akhilesh Yadav after the release of Common Minimum Programme of the alliance in lucknow on Saturday, Rahul taking a swipe at Modi for his ‘raincoat in bathroom’ barb at former PM Manmohan Singh, said the PM was more interested in ‘peeping into people’s bathrooms’. The Congress top gun expressed hope that Modi would get a ‘jolt’ once the results of UP Assembly elections were out.
“Modi likes to read janampatri (horoscope), search Google and peep into people’s bathrooms, but he is a failure as a Prime Minister,” Rahul said.
The Congress vice-president also reacted strongly to Modi’s threat during an election rally in Haridwar on Friday that the BJP has a detailed dossier on Congress leaders. Daring the PM, Rahul said, “You have been the Prime Minister for over past two years. You can take out the janmapatri of Congress and go ahead with it.”
To another of Modi’s jibe that Rahul was the ‘most joked about politician’ on Google, the Congress leader hit back, “He likes to search Google and he can do so in his leisure. But he has failed as a PM. Modi’s policy is that of distraction. When he cannot reply to issues like employment, security, demonetisation, he distracts people and the whole country knows it,” Rahul said.
“Modi talks about security and terorism. The result of surgical strike has been that some 90 security personnel had to sacrifice their lives,” the Congrerss leader said.
Speaking at the conference, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav said that emotions and anger were not right as these were elections for growth and prosperity of UP.
“Anyone’s janmpatri is a click away in this net age. The PM and BJP should not mislead people and instead tell them as to what they have given to the state which elected all prominent NDA leaders.”
To a question on Muslim clerics like Maulana Ahmed Bukhari and Kalbe Jawwad rallying behind BSP, Akhilesh said that personal issues should not be manifested at political level.
“One maulana earlier used to seek votes for the BJP and is now backing the BSP. Is he working towards an alliance between the two parties IJ As far as the second maulana is concerned, you can ask him personally if he would bless the two of us,” the CM querried.
Even as Rahul preferred to shy away from commenting on BSP chief Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav attacked her saying, “This party has a history of forging post-poll alliances with the BJP.”
Taking a further dig at the BSP chief, Akhilesh referred to the statues of elephants and stone memorials built in her tenure and said, “Pattharwali sarkar bhi ab development ki baat kar rahi hai...yeh alliance ka impact hai.”
However both leaders avoided questions on their future relationships. “We have not come to UP just for power, it is aimed at transforming the State. It is a partnership of shared vision for the next five years,” Gandhi said.