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In NCR, Rahul says will change face of UP in just five years

In two back-to-back election rallies in Ghaziabad and another at Jewar in Greater Noida, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Thursday took on the BSP and SP, blaming them for everything that has gone wrong in Uttar Pradesh. Peeyush Khandelwal reports.

Updated on: Feb 24, 2012, 08:22:29 IST
Hindustan Times | By , Ghaziabad
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In two back-to-back election rallies in Ghaziabad and another at Jewar in Greater Noida, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Thursday took on the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP), blaming them for everything that has gone wrong in Uttar Pradesh.

A huge crowd looked on as Rahul descended from his chopper at Kamla Nehru Nagar and later at Ghanta Ghar in Ghaziabad.

Apart from local candidates contesting the Assembly Elections, Rahul was flanked by Minister of State for Communications Sachin Pilot, Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda, Congress leader Rajiv Shukla and Rashtriya Lok Dal general secretary Jayant Chaudhary.

Congress-general-secretary-Rahul-Gandhi-addresses-an-election-rally-in-Etawah-PTI-photo
Congress-general-secretary-Rahul-Gandhi-addresses-an-election-rally-in-Etawah-PTI-photo

“What have BSP and SP given you?” he asked the crowd. “The state government has no intention of developing the state and you people are forced to work in different states despite being hard workers. There are no roads, electricity, development and employment opportunities,” he said.

Rahul said that the people’s earnings were being “eaten up by the elephant and the cycle”. “The government has no clean intentions. They killed farmers in Bhatta Parsaul and farmers’ land was sold to builders. Mayawati and Mulayam had no time to hear their sufferings,” he said.

Asking people to vote for the Congress, he said, “We have been waiting for your support for the past 22 years. Give us a chance and we will develop your state in the next five years.”

Addressing a similar rally at Jewar, he blamed the 22-year non-Congress rule in Uttar Pradesh for everything that had gone wrong in the state. “Non-Congress governments came and went. The BSP formed government four times. But nothing happened,” he said.

A day earlier in Greater Noida, Mayawati had said that the Congress must answer why UP remained a backward state despite the fact that it (Congress) ruled the state for 40 year.

(Inputs from Darpan Singh and Kapil Datta in Greater Noida)

  • Peeyush Khandelwal
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Peeyush Khandelwal

    Peeyush Khandelwal writes on a range of issues in western Uttar Pradesh – from crime, to development authorities and from infrastructure to transport. Based in Ghaziabad, he has been a journalist for almost a decade.Read More

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