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Unfortunate that PM’s effigy burnt, says Rahul Gandhi. Then an attack
The Congress leader said that the mahagathbandhan held out promise for Bihar under the leadership of energetic Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who talks about jobs.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for using lockdown and demonetisation as tools to benefit a handful of business entities and said that he did nothing to provide relief to the most affected lot like youths, labourers, farmers and small and medium businessmen, who form the backbone of Indian economy.
“Demonetisation and lockdown were resorted to with a common purpose to help 5-10 rich businessmen like Adani and Ambani. He made the people deposit their money in banks in the name of fight against black money and used the cash to waive loans of businessmen,” said Gandhi, addressing an election rally at Valmikinagar of West Champaran district.
The former Congress president said that it was unfortunate that people in Punjab had burnt effigy of the PM instead of Ravana and Kumbhkarn during Dussehra. “It is a matter of worry that the PM’s effigy was being torched. But, the question is why did farmers resort to this? What Nitish Kumar had done in Bihar to destroy the farm sector is being implemented across the country,” said Gandhi.
“Farmers in Bihar are struggling to get the price of their produce as the mandi system was dismantled long ago. This led to migration of workforce to other states in search of jobs. There is no job in Bihar. There is no demerit in farmers and youth. The fault lies in chief minister Nitish Kumar and PM Modi, who never speak truth,” alleged the Congress leader, adding that the nation cannot progress until farmers and villages are taken care of.
Reminding the people about the significance of Champaran during the freedom struggle, Gandhi said that Mahatma Gandhi had understood the power of Bihar and the land of Champaran and he chose this place to launch his fight against the most powerful nation of the world at that time.
He said that ironically the land of Champaran saw PM Modi telling lies to the people. “During the last elections, he (Modi) had said that he would take a sip of tea made of sugar from local sugar mills. Do you remember? Did he have tea with you? None of the closed mills could be revived,” said Gandhi. He said that the crowd would drive him (Modi) away when he would start talking about giving jobs to the youth as his promise for two crore jobs every year turned out to be fake.
Urging the people to keep afresh in their mind the sufferings of migrants during the lockdown, the Congress leader said that migrants were forced to march thousands of kilometres on foot without food and water as all means of transportation were put off all of a sudden. “They (migrants) told me that they would have reached homes if the government had given them three-four days before the lockdown,” said Gandhi.
The Congress leader said that the mahagathbandhan held out promise for Bihar under the leadership of energetic Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who talks about jobs. “The Congress has done a lot for the development of the nation. It knows how to stand with farmers and its workforce. Yes, we have a shortcoming that we can’t lie. We have the plan and vision for growth of the state. We would all together help Bihar define a new meaning of development to the entire country,” said Gandhi.
Former Union minister Subodh Kant Sahai, BPCC campaign committee chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh and former BPCC chief Anil Sharma were among the prominent leaders who addressed the gathering.
The Congress has fielded Ram Pravesh Mishra as its candidate for the by-election on Valmikinagar Lok Sabha seat, which would go to the polls on November 7 under the third phase of election.
Rahul Gandhi also addressed another rally at Kuseshwar Asthan in Darbhanga in the afternoon. Earlier, he addressed two election rallies, at Hisua in Nawada and Kahalgaon in Bhagalpur, to boost the electioneering for the first phase polls.
