 "Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi addressing people during his kisan yatra.")
Rahul Gandhi on Thursday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the premier was playing politics over the blood of soldiers, who had sacrificed their lives in Jammu and Kashmir.
“You are hiding behind the blood of the soldiers … aap khoon ki dalali kar rahe ho … they (the soldiers) have done their job, you do yours,” Rahul said hours after the ruling BJP took the recent surgical strikes on terrorist camps across the Line of Control to poll-bound UP, where Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar spoke about it at a rally in Agra.
Though the Congress had supported the September 29 surgical strikes, it has been targeting the government for politicising the issue while pointing out that the previous government never claimed credit for earlier surgical strikes against terrorists across the LoC.
Rahul was addressing a rally at Parliament Street to mark the culmination of his month-long Deoria-to-Delhi “Kisan Yatra”.
The yatra got delayed as Rahul’s motorcade caused traffic jams in the city. As the organisers had to end the event by sunset, the speeches of senior party leaders were dropped to allow Rahul to address the crowd.
Training his guns at Modi, the Congress vice-president accused him of having divided people in the two years of his government and having failed to provide them justice. “You ask us what the Congress did in the past 70 years. We have provided justice to people, while you have only divided them and put up one against the other in Assam, UP and Gujarat,” said Rahul.
“You gave concessions worth Rs 1.15 lakh crore to around 15 rich people,” he said, referring to Modi, while pointing out that his Make in India and Clean India initiatives had proved to be mere slogans.
Rahul pointed out that the Prime Minister was only making hollow promises to the people and had shown no progress in providing jobs to the youth. “I met lakhs of jobless youth during the yatra. They told me they wanted to work but there were no opportunities. The country is not able to give jobs to the youth. This is not acceptable. We need to change this.”
Summing up the lessons he learnt during the 3,500-km yatra, Rahul said the politicians thought they knew how to run the country but the common man had the right answers.
UP Congress chief Raj Babbar said Rahul had set the ground rules for its political fight with the BJP noting that the future belonged to the leader who would be seen walking hand in hand along with the poor and the meek.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who is recovering from illness, and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were not seen on the dais. However, Sonia's political aide Ahmed Patel was there along with AICC treasurer Motilal Vora, AK Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Janardan Dwivedi, Digvijaya Singh, Ambika Soni and Kamal Nath.
ALL IN A DAY
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Rivalry between Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar, a Dalit leader, and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, a Jat, was once again at play as their supporters clashed with each other at the Bhairon Temple where Rahul had a brief stopover. Tanwar was injured in the clashes
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In a lighter vein, Rahul mentioned about the Hindi film Insaf Ka Taraju in which UP Congress chief Raj Babbar had played a role. Babbar, who was on the dais with senior leaders, couldn’t stop blushing
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Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who is recovering from illness, and former prime minister Manmohan Singh were not seen on the dais. However, Sonia’s political aide, Ahmed Patel, was there along with AICC treasurer Motilal Vora, A K Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Janardan Dwivedi, Digvijaya Singh, Ambika Soni and Kamal Nath
- Rahul’s yatra covered 3,500 km in 30 days and had around 26 khat sabhas besides around 600-700 public meetings
