KALPETTA: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi gave bouquets as well as brickbats to the Left parties. At the election road show of UDF candidate P K Jayalakshmi in Mananthavady on Thursday, he said though the Congress doesn’t agree with the ideology of Left parties, it doesn’t mean both should hate, kill or not smile at each other.
“I don’t agree with them, but I certainly do not hate them. I will debate, discuss and disagree with them. But I will always smile at them because at the end of the day, they are our brothers. We all are brothers and sisters,” he told the cheering crowd. Elaborating, Rahul said it is important that the discussion with the Left happens.
Later, at the poll meeting of UDF candidate T Siddique in Kalpetta, he flayed the Left and RSS for treading the path of violence. “The Left had attacked our candidate. We don’t believe in hatred or violence being followed by the Left and RSS.”
Rahul flayed the LDF government for not delivering on the promises in Wayanad. “Wayanad has been asking for a medical college hospital (MCH) for long. But what have they done in these five years? They just put a board of MCH here. We don’t want a board but a super-speciality MCH,” he said.
He also criticised the Pinarayi Vijayan government on the issue of Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ). “ESZ is a critical concern of Wayanad. When we raised this in Parliament, we were told that the LDF government in the state had proposed it,” he said. Rahul explained that through NYAY, the Congress fights three critical issues — poverty, unemployment and economic stagnation.
“It will ensure that no poor man in Kerala will have less than Rs 72,000 in his account a year. The Congress believes that the money reaching the hands of common people will ignite the economy. But PM Narendra Modi thinks pumping money into the hands of a few corporates will ignite the stagnant economy. It will only result in these corporates looting the money,” he alleged.