BHOPAL: The battle of election rallies in Madhya Pradesh, between the two main contenders – ruling BJP and the main opposition Congress – has now shifted to the 26-seat-strong Bundelkhand region.
Ten days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation of a Rs 100 crore temple-cum-memorial dedicated to the Bhakti movement mystic poet and social reformer Sant Ravidas in Sagar district, Congress’s national president Mallikarjun Kharge launched the opposition party’s poll campaign in Bundelkhand region with a mega rally in the same Sagar district on Tuesday.
While accusing PM Modi and the BJP of remembering the 14th-century saint only for votes during elections, Kharge questioned, “If PM Modi and his party were so committed to Sant Ravidas, why was a temple dedicated to the same saint bulldozed in Delhi in August 2019. From this very stage, I announce that a Sant Ravidas University will be established here once the Congress comes to power in the state.”
Focusing on the Bundelkhand region, Kharge accused the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government of misutilizing the Bundelkhand package. “In 2009, owing to the efforts of our leader Rahul Gandhi, our then government at the Centre had approved the Bundelkhand package. Had the BJP regime here properly used the package, the entire picture of the Bundelkhand region would’ve changed?”
Two days after Home Minister Amit Shah released the Report Card of 18-plus years of BJP rule in MP and dared the Congress to come out with a similar report card on decades of Congress regimes, Kharge said,
“I’ve full details of what has been done by our governments in MP and the entire country. I want to tell, PM Modi, had we not fought for freedom for the country, rendered the Constitution, they would have been sitting at home instead of being in power.”