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Shivraj Singh Chouhan is like Sachin Tendulkar, says Rahul Gandhi. It is a barb
Congress president Rahul Gandhi accused Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan of following in the Centre’s footsteps and making thousands “hollow promises”.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi launched his party’s campaign in Madhya Pradesh with a stinging attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, accusing the chief minister of following in the centre’s footsteps and making thousands “hollow promises” that he hadn’t kept.
Gandhi had a Sachin Tendulkar analogy in his barb. When Sachin Tendulkar, the prolific run-scorer across all formats of cricket, came on the pitch, the Congress president said, everyone knew that he would score runs for the country and was known as a run-making machine.
“There is a similar kind of a machine in Madhya Pradesh... Shivraj Singh Chouhan. It churns out promises, hollow promises,” Gandhi said at a meeting of party workers.
At last count, the Congress president said Chouhan had made 21,000 announcements and promises.
“On the one hand, PM Modi makes a hollow promise, that farmers will get the right prices... What he says gets repeated here,” Gandhi said before he got down to lashing out at the central government for the Rafale fighter jet deal and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya’s flying out of the country in 2016.
The Congress president, who has led a sharp campaign against the government over Vijay Mallya’s exit over the last week, also accused the centre of going soft on industrialists who don’t repay loans, not farmers.
If an industrialist doesn’t repay a loan, it is called a non-performing asset. But when it is a farmer who misses on repayments, he is called a defaulter, Gandhi said, promising a farm loan waiver in Madhya Pradesh and beyond if the Congress is voted back to power.
To the thousands of party workers who cheered him, Rahul Gandhi promised that their interest would be his top priority, next only to the interest of people.
“When the government is formed here, it will be government for the public, for party workers... If a party leader’s doors aren’t open for party workers, he will not be chief minister, minister for even 15 minutes,” he said to a roaring applause from party workers.
Gandhi, who had landed in state capital Bhopal just hours earlier, had held the four-hour-long roadshow after performing ‘puja’ and taking blessings from 11 priests.
Travelling in a bus, the 48-year-old leader criss-crossed several areas of Bhopal, passing through the roads which were decorated and had party banners like the ones describing Gandhi as a ‘Shiv bhakt’.
The roadshow was seen as a virtual launch of the Congress campaign for the assembly polls as it attempts to dislodge the BJP that has been in power in the state for the last 15 years.
