Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday started his two-day tour of the Malwa-Nimar region of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh by offering prayers in Ujjain’s Mahakaleshwar temple, one of the most revered shrines of Lord Shiva.
Addressing a public rally here soon after, Mr. Gandhi launched a sharp attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that his “mistakes” were resulting in the death of Army jawans in J&K.
Reaching out to farmers in this crucial belt, where the BJP won 56 out of 66 Assembly seats, the Congress chief asserted that if elected to power, the Congress would waive off farm loans in 10 days.
“If the Chief Minister dithers, he would be changed. The farmers in the State, for the first time in 15 years, will feel that they are in power,” he said.
Mr. Gandhi also promised that a Congress CM “would spend 18 of the 24 hours in a day to provide jobs to the youth of the State.”
He described Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan as someone who makes 20,000 promises but doesn’t fulfill any of them.
Referring to his meeting with ex-servicemen on Saturday, he said that they told him that J&K was on fire because of Mr. Modi’s mistakes.
“The ex-servicemen said in the meeting that J&K is burning, doors have been opened Kashmir for terrorists. They tell me Rahul ji no politician was martyred in J&K but army men are laying their lives there because of Narendra Modi’s mistakes,”he said.
He said while the Modi government keeps talking about surgical strikes and military power, the government has done nothing for the Armed Forces and accused “the Prime Minister of lying about implementing One Rank One Pension (OROP).
“The prime minister claims that OROP has been implemented. He speaks lies. OROP has not been implemented so far. Modi ji claims but ex-servicemen said it was not executed,”he said.
In a speech that last nearly 40 minutes, the Congress chief attacked the Modi government over the Rafale deal, divesting the CBI Director of his powers, banks scans committed by fugitive businessmen like Vijay Mallya, Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi.
“In Ujjain, a poor lady was served an electricity bill of Rs 1 lakh when she could not pay, she was jailed. On the other hand, Vijay Mallya fled the country after stealing Rs 9,5000 crore and that after telling Finance Minister Arun Jaitley....What is RS 9,500 crore before Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi,”he said
“The difference between them [BJP] and is is that PM calls Mehul Choksi as Mehul Bhai while we call the lay who could not pay her power our sister,”he added.
The Congress chief also addressed a public rally in the tribal belt of Jhabua before wrapping up his first with a roadshow in Indore.