Seeking to deflate the anti-graft plank of BJP against UPA government, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi today made a fierce attack on the party's rule in Karnataka, accusing it of "looting" the state and calling it a "champion" of corruption.
Setting an aggressive tone to the Congress campaign for the May 5 Assembly polls, in his first election outing since becoming the Vice President, Gandhi turned the spotlight mostly on corruption in his public meetings at Sindhanoor, Hungund and Bijapur in northern Karnataka.
"... BJP will lose here. We can hear it in Delhi...", Gandhi said as he took on the BJP by accusing it of "doing nothing but looting the state" during its five year rule marked by "various scandals".
Chiding the BJP for "breaking" electoral promises, he said "the only thing they remembered was how to loot public money in the state. They have done it. They are past masters in this".
"The BJP launched an agitation against corruption in the country. But in Karnataka, its government has been a champion of corruption," Gandhi told a meeting at Hungund.
Seeking to strike a chord with the gathering after arriving nearly two hours late in his first meeting at Sindhanoor, he tried to make it interactive posing questions on BJP's poll promises and whether they have been fulfilled to which the crowd responded with a vociferous 'no'.
Taking a swipe at the BJP for talking about corruption in Delhi, he slammed it for giving "Vidhan Sabha seats to two brothers (mining barons from Bellary Janardhana Reddy and Karunakara Reddy who are facing corruption cases).
