PATNA:Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi kicked off his Bihar poll campaign on Saturday from Ram Nagar in West Champaran by hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making “false promises” and called him “feku” (liar).
“He promised two crore jobs every year and Rs 15 lakh to each account. Did it happen? He is a feku (liar),” he alleged and asked the gathering to raise hands if any of them had benefited from the Modi government.
Addressing the rally in the region, where Mahatma Gandhi had waged a battle to free farmers from indigo farming forced by the Britishers, Rahul claimed the Prime Minister was surrounded by people in “suit-boot” and that he “looks only after their interests.”
While reminding Modi of the Mahatma’s simplicity, the Congress leader said, “A suit-boot barrister Mahatma Gandhi shed it for the sake of the poor, but Narendra Modi, who claims to have been a tea vendor, went for Rs 15 lakh suit after becoming the Prime Minister.”
He cautioned the people not to be carried away by Modi’s promises as in the last Lok Sabha polls. “After winning the election, his suit-boot wearing friends from Delhi and Gujarat would come to Bihar for land of farmers under the new Land Bill and they would be obliged by the NDA government,” he said. Referring to the recent attacks on Bihari migrants in other states, the Congress leader said if the BJP was voted to power in Bihar, people in suit–boot would demand their lands. “Then you will be forced to go to other places for employment. And if you don’t speak in their language, you will be beaten up,” he warned.
Raking up the Lalit Modi controversy too, Rahul further alleged that though the Prime Minister had said he wouldn’t allow corruption, his own minister Sushma Swaraj had rescued former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi. Raising the issue of a local sugar mill, he asked his audience if the Prime Minister had kept his promise of reviving the mill.
Earlier, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar received Rahul at the Patna airport before he came to Ramnagar by a helicopter.
However, he along with RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav skipped the first joint meeting organised by the Congress after the “Swabhiman” rally in Patna on August 30. Interestingly, Lalu was represented in the rally by his younger son Tejashwi Yadav and Nitish by his party Rajya Sabha member K C Tyagi.