Ahmedabad: With an eye on the all crucial Patel votes, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Monday began a three-day campaign in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, attacking the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government over issues ranging from farm distress to unemployment.
Saurashtra, which elects a few less than a third of the state’s legislators, has a sizeable number of Patel voters who have traditionally backed the BJP. Of the 182 assembly seats, 52 are in the Saurashtra region and the Congress managed to bag only 12 of these in the 2012 state elections.
Gandhi, on his 150km campaign route from the pilgrim town of Dwarka to Jamnagar, travelled in a bus and en route interacted with farmers, traders and fishermen. Gujarat Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki, state party in-charge Ashok Gehlot and other Congress leaders accompanied Gandhi.
“Land is given away to industrialists in two days but when it comes to give to farmers, it may take years and still you might not get it…today businesses worth Rs7 trillion have become non-performing assets. But when farmers can’t repay loans they are called defaulters,” Gandhi said at a rally. “The government rescues the industrialist but sends the farmer to jail. Why this discrimination? Farmers deserve the same treatment as industrialists.”
The Congress vice-president said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to demonetize high-value currency notes in November had dealt a severe blow to the economy.
“Then came GST (goods and services tax). We told the government that there should be one uniform tax for the entire country. We warned the government not to hurry in its rollout, else it would have adverse effects,” Gandhi said, adding that GST had hurt many small and medium enterprises traders and had benefitted a few large corporate houses.
The Congress, which has not been in power in Gujarat for over two decades, is looking to revive its fortune in the upcoming state elections later this year.
It is seeking to take advantage of the perceived alienation of Patel community from the state government over the denial of its demands for quotas in government jobs and university seats. The ruling party suffered a defeat to the Congress in rural local body elections in December 2015.
Hardik Patel, 24, who has been the face of the Patel community’s agitation for quotas, welcomed Congress leader Gandhi in a tweet. If the Congress keeps in mind the needs of the people of the state, he would ask his community to vote for the party, he said.