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Escalating his attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi on accused him of practising “politics of vendetta” by “scrapping” projects in his Amethi Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh.
Apparently miffed over scrapping of a mega food park and a Hindustan Paper Mill project in Amethi and shifting of the Rajiv Gandhi IIIT to the main campus in Allahabad, the Congress vice president said Modi was harming people of Amethi by scrapping development projects.
“Narendra Modi said he will not indulge in politics of vendetta but he is doing the same with the people of Amethi,” he told a public meeting in Jafarganj Mandi Samiti campus in Jagdishpur on the second day of his three-day visit to his constituency.
“There was no fault on the part of people of Amethi... Modi talks of development but he is harming them,” Rahul said, adding that projects that could have changed the lives of people have been either scrapped or diverted elsewhere.
Rahul dubbed as false Modi’s promises made before and after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, especially bringing down inflation and transferring Rs 15 lakh to bank accounts of every poor family after getting back black money from abroad.
The Congress vice-president asked the people whether any of them has benefitted from any programme of the Centre. The answer was a loud “no”.
“He (Modi) made these promises not to the people of Amethi but to the entire nation but not a single person has benefitted by his promises of controlling inflation,
depositing Rs 15 lakh in the accounts of each citizen and upgrading certain towns to smart city,” Rahul said.
Ridiculing the Make in India campaign, the Congress leader said, “The Babbar Sher (mascot of Make in India campaign) does not squeak even like a mouse.”
He said not a single person got employment under it.
Accusing the central government of stalling the works of the United Progressive Alliance government, he said though Modi moved about all over the world giving speeches, nothing is being done back home.
“Thousand of crores of rupees of loans of industrialists are being waived but not those of poor farmers,” he said, adding the erstwhile Congress-led UPA government wrote off loans of farmers totalling Rs 70,000 crore.
“We are not in the government but we will fight for the interest of people on the roads, Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha... We know people face several problems like power and water scarcity,” he said.
Thanking his party men for their continued support, Rahul exhorted them to vote for Congress in the coming assembly polls in the state where it has been out of power for years so that it can work for development of the state as well as Amethi and Rae Bareli.
He also dedicated to the people several road projects in Amethi.
Earlier, expelled member Rajesh Pandey and his supporters staged a dharna against Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s representative K L Sharma in the morning.
Led by Pandey, the protesters staged a dharna at the Munshiganj crossing when Rahul was meeting people of his constituency at the Munshiganj guest house.
According to Congress sources, Pandey and supporters also tried to march to the guest house to meet Rahul and apprise him of the alleged misdeeds of Sharma and demand his removal, but the police chased them away.
Pandey has alleged that Sharma has been indulging in wrong practices in Congress president’s Lok Sabha constituency Rae Bareli and has hoarded black money which can be unearthed in CBI probe.
He said he had apprised Rahul of Sharma’s actions several times but to no avail and after his deeds surfaced in the media he (Sharma) conspired to get him expelled by framing fake charges.
Pandey also alleged that Sharma was interfering in his personal life.
Rahul, who arrived on Wednesday night, met Congress leaders and probable candidates for the UP assembly polls.
Image: Rahul Gandhi interacting with the crowds in Amethi during the Jan Sabha. Photograph: @officeofRG/Twitter