Balasinor, 11 March 2014

Congress vice president and undeclared PM candidate of Congress party, Rahul Gandhi today in his speech at Balasinor in central Gujarat said Congress party wants to uplift 70 crore above poverty line(APL) people and add them to middle class.

Most of the part of Rahul’s speech was about attacking Narendra Modi.

Without naming Modi, Rahul said Sardar had described RSS ideology as vicious and Modi has spent life in RSS.

Rahul said one who says Congress party has to be destroyed doesn’t know that Congress was created by Sardar and Gandhi. Both of them gave life for Congress.

Rahul said BJP leaders claim Gujarat model has been given by BJP, but when I was 7, I saw Amul hoarding. This cooperative model which is known as Gujarat model has been made by women of Gujarat.

Targeting Modi again, Rahul said, “he says make me watchman of this nation. India doesn’t need watchman, people here need rights. Each person has to be made watchman of government, and not one single person.”

Rahul alleged that lakhs of acre of land has been snatched away from poor and handed over to industries. Rahul termed farm land acquisition for industry as theft.

He said Congress will never believe in RSS and BJP leaders. He said when Congress talked about computer, two top BJP leaders opposed it in the name of threat to employment. Rajiv Gandhi and Sam Pitroda computerize the offices. After ten years top two BJP leaders and Pramod Mahajan claimed BJP brought computers. After ten years BJP people will claim they gave NREGA and right to food. BJP people have no ideology, but only anger in heart and they keep traveling with this anger and want to gift it to people because they are pained with this anger inside. We have love and we believe in power of people of this country.

Rahul asked people whether they got employment, whether they see Nano on road after thousands of crores of Rupees were given, land was given and poor people were displaced? BPL eligibility limit is Rs. 11, children are dying due to malnutrition and they say Gujarat is shining.

Gujarat is not shining for women or poor people but for 10-15 rich people. Their planes, cars, houses are shining like gold, but houses of poor are not shining.

Rahul said, “we give MNREGA employment to 5 crore people, food to 80 crore people with guarantee. BJP opposed it. We gave relief of Rs. 70,000 crore debt to farmers. We have lifted 15 crore people above poverty line in ten years that has never happened before. Congress wants 70 crore APL people(watchman, tea seller, truck drivers, taxi drivers etc) to add to middle class.”

Rahul said there are two types of people. There are some who are like Gandhiji, who go to people, ask the people to show path. Such leaders believe that people posses knowledge. Such leader has no arrogance. And there are other kind people leaders who are like Hitler. They believe people have no knowledge and there’s no need to listen to them.

BJP’s reaction:

Criticising Rahul Gandhi for his “chowkidar” (watchman) remarks about Narendra Modi at Balasinor today, Gujarat BJP said what the Congress had done to stop corruption when it was in power for so many years.

“Rahul’s father Rajiv Gandhi once admitted that one rupee sent by the Centre becomes 15 paise before it reaches the poor. To stop such a practice, our chief minister Narendra Modi became a ‘chowkidar’ of the state treasury and stopped the Congress from accessing it since the last 12 years,” Gujarat BJP spokesperson Vijay Rupani said in a statement.

Rupani also labelled the present Congress as a ‘videshi’ (foreign) Congress.

“They dumped the Gandhi-Sardar Patel ideology long ago and are interested only in acquiring power through vote bank politics. If they had walked the path shown by Gandhiji and Sardar Patel, the country might have been in better shape today,” Rupani said.

He also objected against Rahul’s allegation of malnutrition among children in Gujarat.

“What the the Congress do to eradicate the problem of malnutrition? What happened to the committee set up by the central government to address that issue? At least Modi introduced the Bal-Bhog scheme and brought down malnutrition ratio among children to 39 per cent, which was 73 per cent in 2007,” Rupani said.