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Congress president Sonia Gandhi, while addressing a rally in Jaipur Rural on Monday, attacked the BJP and Narendra Modi and said they are not seeing the achievements of the UPA government. She also sought to point out, in a barb at Modi, that running a state and a country are two different things. Shahnawaz Akhtar reports.
In her maiden rally in Rajasthan days ahead of the first phase of polling in the desert state, Congress president Sonia Gandhi came down heavily on Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, saying that the Gujarat chief minister doesn’t have a magic wand.
Gandhi, while addressing a rally in Jaipur rural on Monday, recounted the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government’s achievements -- from the increase in the average age to rise of production of electricity and production of food-grains, connecting a 100 million people through telephone, etc.
“But considering people as ignorant, the Bhartiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi have negated them. And Modi thinks that he has a magic wand to change the country within few days,” said Sonia.
“When election comes, everyone has the right to present their views before public. But BJP and its campaigner Narendra Modi are saying that the Congress has done nothing for the country since Independence,” Sonia Gandhi thundered.
She was addressing the rally in Jaipur Rural constituency for party candidate and veteran Congress leader CP Joshi.
“When India got freedom, the average age of people was that of 32 years, but now it is 70 years; the production of food-grains were 5 crore tones but now it is 25 crore tones, the canal for irrigation were only few but now it is in lakhs of numbers – did all this happen without the work and vision of Indira Gandhi?” the Congress president asked.
“Crores of people are getting subsidies on food-grains; for army men we have implemented ‘the one rank, one pension’ system and we have done several work for the minorities too. But the BJP and Modi refuse to see them,” Sonia Gandhi said.
“I do not know what kind of magic wand Modi has got, but to run a state and a vast country are two different things,” she sought to point out.
Image: Congress candidate from Jaipur Rural C P Joshi greeting Sonia Gandhi with a memento. Rajasthan Congress chief and Union minister Sachin Pilot is also seen
Photograph: Chandra Mohan Aloria/Rediff.com