E-Paper
'Militancy up during NDA rule'
Sonia alleged that during the last five years the country was pushed to chaos and no work was done for the poor and downtrodden.
Countering allegations made by BJP that Congress was responsible for rise in insurgency in Assam, AICC president Sonia Gandhi claimed that militancy had grown in the country during the tenure of the NDA government.
"All militancy took its root during the tenure of the NDA government while the erstwhile Congress government had made a sincere attempt to solve the problem," Sonia told a public rally at the Golaghat public field here.
The Congress president, during her second leg of electioneering here, was reacting to BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu charges at a public rally at Dibrugarh on Sunday that her party was "directly responsible for militancy in Jammu and Kashmir and Assam".
Launching a scathing attack on the BJP-led NDA government during her hour-long speech, Sonia alleged that during the last five years the country was pushed to chaos and "no work (was) done for the poor and downtrodden".
"People are frightened of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee because during his tenure the country had suffered with prices soaring up and no development work done," the Congress president said.
Sonia alleged that "planned and systematic procedure" was followed by the NDA government and their claims of good governance did not hold any meaning for the people.
"They (the BJP) are following a policy to kill the poor and the innocent," Sonia said, promising that if voted to power "she will not hesitate to give her life for the people of Assam and the Northeast, an area which has been thoroughly neglected by the central government".
The Congress president expressed surprise at the allegations made time to time by BJP leaders against her family: "Do you mean to say that Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had not done anything for the country?"
Listing the achievements of previous Congress regimes, Sonia claimed that during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister Assam got the IIT, Numaligarh refinery and other developmental projects".
"The BJP is shedding crocodile tears when they say that Northeast had suffered during years due to neglect," she said.
On the controversial IMDT Act, the Congress president said her party's stand was clear that no "genuine" Indian citizen should be harassed.
