Ahmedabad: BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra today slammed Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, saying his “model of development” in Amethi that “lacks good roads, hospitals and infrastructure facilities”, will not work in Gujarat. Referring to the BJP’s landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh civic polls today, he said the party can now set the new target of winning 160 seats in Gujarat, out of the total assembly 182 seats. “Rahul Gandhi is adopting a strategy of negative politics and trying to introduce the ‘Amethi model of development’ in Gujarat. There are no pucca roads, good hospitals and infrastructure facilities in Amethi. So the ‘Amethi model of development’ won’t work in Gujarat,” the BJP leader said. Amethi is Gandhi’s parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh.

Patra alleged that Gandhi and other Congress leaders were maligning the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi by criticising his “developmental policies”. The BJP leader also termed as “baseless” the Congress vice president’s charge that the BJP-led Gujarat government extended undue favours of Rs 33,000 crore to Tata Motors for car manufacturing facility at Sanand. The ruling BJP swept the Uttar Pradesh civic polls bagging nine of the ten mayoral seats for which results were declared till evening today while leading in six others where the counting was in progress.

Referring to the UP civic poll results, the BJP leader said, “The BJP won majority civic body polls in UP. The party had won all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat in 2014. So, we can now revise the target of winning 160 Gujarat Assembly seats instead of the earlier target of 150 seats.” In a veiled attack on Patidar quota agitation spearhead Hardik Patel, OBC leader Alpesh Thakor and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani, Patra said these “outsourced” leaders won’t help the Congress win the elections in Gujarat.