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Targetting Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi indirectly, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday addressed his first rally at Bastar, and said that contrary to the ideology of his party who worked for the poor, the opposition has a leader who only works for himself.
Gandhi, while hinting at Modi, said: "My firm belief is that in politics there are two types of people. One who fights for the people for their larger interests while others are who fight for themselves."
"We want the common people to know that they run the country. The opposition feels one or two people can run the country," Gandhi added.
Continuing on his pro-poor agenda, Rahul Gandhi said that the Congress Party was working to ensure that the poor were empowered with their rights.
"Our fight is for the common people, for the poor, for the weaker sections. We want them to be empowered," Gandhi said.
" We need to give the common man power. We need to empower the common man with rights," Gandhi said.
"We want that the common man should not go hungry, children should get education," he added.
The Congress Vice President also took a jibe at the BJP-led Chattisgarh government on grounds of health and education, and questioned Chief Minister Raman Singh's method of governance in the state.
"In a village of 2000 people only one person is a 12th pass. What kind of a Government is running this state(Chhattisgarh)?" Gandhi asked.
"Are doctors seen in Chhattisgarh's hospitals? How many have died from Gastroenteritis?" Gandhi asked.
Commenting on the May 25, 2013 Darbha Ghati Maoist attack, Rahul Gandhi said: "An attack was launched on the highway, 32 people died, where was the government?"
Gandhi also appealed to the tribals to join politics and question governance. "We took the historic decision to bring RTI so that people can ask any question to their Government," he said.
The Congress vice president, who spoke for the first time in Bastar today, began his address referring to the May 25, 2013 Maoist attack in Bastar and recalled how the then PCC chief Nandkumar Patel, who was among those killed, had told him that the people in Chhattisgarh were looking forward to a change in the Raman Singh-led Government.
Earlier today, Chattisgarh was labeled as one of India's "least developed" states by the Dr. Raghuram Rajan Committee for Evolving a Composite Development Index of States, which was submitted to the Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram.
