Even before the controversy over his remarks on migration of people from Uttar Pradesh died down, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the state has been left behind in development and people from there will continue to go to other states in search of employment.
"The country has moved forward and you are lagging behind. If you do not move forward, then you will have to go to the rest of the country like you do," the Congress general secretary said addressing a rally.
"You go to Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana to work and you will have to keep doing that," he said. Rahul said that UP was losing out on the development opportunities that the other states were benefitting from.
"Bengaluru has moved ahead in the IT sector. If UP wants to work in this sector, it cannot, because Bengaluru and Hyderabad have established a monopoly in this sector.
"If you want to set up automobile industry in UP, then Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have already moved ahead and the loss is yours," he said.
Rahul's comments last week in his Phulpur rally on migration of people from UP to Maharashtra and other states suggesting they were begging had sparked a political slugfest as the Bharatiya Janata Party, Samajwadi Party and other parties had been quick to attack him over the remarks.
The Congress had dismissed the criticism as a reflection of opposition's "restlessness" over its "rise".
Attacking Bahujan Samaj Party and SP, the Congress leader told the gathering here that their leaders give a lot of speeches but they could not hide what they have done in the past 20 years.
"What they have done in the past they will do so in the future," he said.
Rahul, who is elected to Lok Sabha from Amethi, alleged that all the governments UP had got in the past 20 years were against the people. "In the past twenty years, UP has had governments of BJP, BSP and SP but all of them were against the people," he said.
"The country does not lack money but the problem is that it does not reach the poor," he said.
"What is happening in UP is that in the past twenty years your money has not been reaching you. Either it gets stuck in Lucknow or it is held back by bureaucrats," he said.
Rahul, who is on a five-day tour of eastern UP, will also visit Bahraich, Shravasti, Siddharth Nagar and Kushinagar and meet party workers.
In his speech, Rahul also targeted BSP leader Mayawati and her government, saying, "When we started National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the UP chief minister said that there was no need for it.
"In the entire country if you ask which is the government scheme from which you have benefitted the most, people say it is MNREGA. The UP CM says it is of no benefit."
The 41-year-old Congress member of Parliament alleged, "It is in UP that there is no benefit from MNREGA because the money is pocketed by contractors and ministers."
He further alleged that due to corruption at the state level, funds released by the Centre through its schemes were not reaching the people.
"We had started the 'Janani suraksha yojna' in which every woman who gives birth is given Rs 1,400. But, in UP, it is the officers who pocket the money," Rahul said.
