RAIPUR: Pledging to accomplish the unfulfilled promises made by the BJP to farmers, Congress president Rahul Gandhi attacked the Narendra Modi government for not keeping the PM’s electoral promises on providing the right price for farm produce, loan waiver and bonus.
Rahul also sought to win over the youths whom he asked how much jobs were generated during the four-and-a-half year Modi rule and the 15-year regime of the Raman Singh government.
With barely a week remaining for the second phase of elections, the Congress chief took a whirlwind tour on Tuesday, crisscrossing four Assembly constituencies in four districts. He began a two-day tour of the central plains area, where many Congress MLAs lost their seats in 2013.
“If voted to power the Congress will not just write-off debt of farmers in 10 days, the remaining two years bonus that the BJP refused to pay will also be given by our government in Chhattisgarh,” he said, holding the PM answerable for neglecting farmers, tribals and youths at the cost of top industrialists.
“Modiji promised of ‘Ache Din’ (good days), but it didn’t come. ‘Ache Din’ came only for Anil Ambani, and Nirav Modi.”
The Congress chief also drew the people’s attention the erstwhile UPA government’s spending on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee programme. “While `35,000 crore is needed annually to run the scheme, Modiji gave `3.5 lakh crore to the 15-20 richest people — the 10 times that amount of 15 select industrialists.”
“The land of tribals and farmers are being snatched away, and they are not being consulted. We brought the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Area Act, the Tribal Bill, the Land Acquisition Act to safeguard land rights of farmers and tribals, but these laws are not being followed in Chhattisgarh and other (BJP-ruled) states. The Congress will implement it again,” he asserted.
Digs out graft cases too
Rahul also targeted the Raman Singh-led BJP government for various scams such as the involving PDS supplies worth J36,000 crore, the J5,000 crore chit-fund scam and the Panama paper leak figuring the CM’s son Abhishek Singh. “But, there has been no investigation in these irregularities,” he said.