LUCKNOW: Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a 2-km road show in Amethi on Saturday as the Lok Sabha constituency, known to be the bastion of Gandhi family, has turned out to be a battle of prestige for the BJP and the Congress.
Addressing the crowd in the roadshow, Shah refuted the Congress claim that Amethi and Rae Bareli were their “family seats”.
“In a democracy it is the people, not a family, who send the candidate to Parliament,” he said questioning if any of the Gandhi family members turned up in Amethi or Rae Bareli during the pandemic.
Shah, atop a four-wheeler turned into a rath (chariot), was flanked by party candidate Smriti Irani and UP BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhury, among other leaders. Wading through a huge crowd of BJP cadre and people of Amethi, the roadshow, which commenced from Ramleela Ground culminated at Devipattan temple. Groups of saffron-clad youth could be spotted at various locations along the roadshow route dancing, blowing conch shells and beating ‘damroos’ while the party supporters fluttered BJP flags shouting the slogans.
Asking the people of Amethi to opt between PM Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, he accused the latter of fleeing to Wayanad after losing Amethi in 2019. “Now Rahul Baba is back in Rae Bareli. I have been in Rae Bareli for three days and can say with confidence that he is losing from there also,” he said.
Earlier, the Union Home Minister addressed two poll rallies in Jhansi-Lalitpur and Banad in the Bundelkhand region of UP. All the four seats of Bundelkhand, including Jhansi, Banda, Hamirpur and Jalaun (SC), will vote in fifth phase on May 20. While addressing a poll rally in Jhansi, land of Rani Lakshmi Bai, Shah reached out to people asking them to fight the “desi Angrez” just like they fought against the British during the freedom struggle.
He asked people had to choose between two categories of leaders. “On one hand there are leaders who have been behind `12 lakh crore scams, born with a silver spoon and go to Thailand for vacation, on the other, there was PM Narendra Modi who has his tenures both as CM and PM unblemished. He was born in a poor family and never took a holiday,” Shah said.
He also targeted Samajwadi Party as the one who ordered firing at the Ram bhakts in Ayodhya in 1990. “On the other hand, we have Modi, who got the Ram Janmabhoomi case pursued, won it, and eventually got a temple constructed in Ayodhya,” Shah asserted.
He reiterated that the opposition leaders avoided going to the Ram Temple consecration ceremony for the sake of their vote bank. He claimed that Congress vote bank politics stood exposed as its leaders advised to keep away from the PoK as “Pakistan had atom bomb.” “We are not afraid of their vote bank. We would take back the PoK, which is an integral part of India,” he said.
The home minister said that there was a time when Bundelkhand was known for `Bahubalis’. “Give us the mandate, and we will ensure that Bundelkhand will give ‘udyogpatis’ (industrialists),” he said, adding that the area would soon be known for nestling the ambitious defense corridor that would wheel out state-of-the-art weapons.