Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi. PTI file photo
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi. PTI file photo
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who traversed Central Gujarat on his latest campaign in the poll-bound state, continued to hit out at Modi government at the Centre and BJP government in the state on multiple issues, including Rafale deal, GST, demonetisation, unemployment and supposed rise in fortunes of Amit Shah's son Jay Shah's firm.
"When Modi ji was in France for Rafale deal, the defence minister was in Goa, buying fish. There are photographs that show it. I have only few questions that I want answers for. Did you not raise cost of Rafale planes? You gave contract to your industrialist friend. Why did you do that? There is a Cabinet Committee on Security. Did you take permission from that? Yes or No?," Rahul Gandhi told his audience at multiple stops. He said that he wanted to raise these questions in Parliament.
India had entered into a government-to-government pact with France in 2015 for purchase of 36 Rafale jets in fly-away condition.
Rahul, who began his journey on Saturday by making condolence visits to homes of former Parliamentarian, the late Mirza Irshad Baig, Madhavsinh Solanki, father of state Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki and former Union external affairs minister, who lost his wife recently, and MP Madhusudan Mistry, who lost his son recently.
Rahul then began his campaign from Dehgam near Ahmedabad where he received a rousing welcome. He moved on to Bayad, Tenpur, Lunawada and Dahod, partly the stronghold of former Gujarat chief minister Shankarsinh Vaghela.
Here too he raised issues of Rs 33,000 crore soft loan to Tata Nano project, GST implementation, demonetisation and rise in turnover of BJP national president Amit Shah's son's company from Rs 50,000 to Rs 80 crore in a span of a few months.
Rahul also raised issue of unemployment in the state, saying that over 30 lakh youth were unemployed. The BJP state unit was quick to point out the discrepancy in the charge by the Congress vice president, saying on Friday Rahul had claimed that over 50 lakh youth were unemployed but on Saturday the figure dipped to over 30 lakh.
Slogan match
In an interesting twist, Congress quietly appears to have changed its slogan for Gujarat elections. In Bayad, the banner below the stage hosting Rahul stated: "Gujarat Aave Chhe, Navsarjan Laave chhe" (Gujarat is coming bringing in new creativity), instead of earlier slogan "Congress Aave Chhe, Navsarjan Laave chhe" (Congress is coming, bringing in new creativity). Perhaps, in the wake of BJP's slogan "Hoon Chhoo Gujarat, Hoon Chhoo Vikas" (I am Gujarat, I am development) which tried to fight the "Vikas Gando Thayo Chhe (Development has gone beserk) slur.