Launching an attack on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in poll-bound, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the coalition’s campaign, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, was only about speaking ill of the Gandhi and Yadav families, but not about setting up manufacturing hubs and creating jobs.
Gandhi said that people had to make a choice between the young leadership of the RJD-Congress combine and ‘beeta hua samay’ (past) of Modi and Kumar. “You have two choices — on one side is Tejashwi and I, on the other side, is beeta hua samay — Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi,” he said.
“This is their campaign – Kumar will speak ill about Tejashwi family and Modi will speak ill of my family. But the question before Bihar is that of employment. It is about farmers and small traders, about which they have not uttered a single word. You gave six years to Modi and 15 years to Kumar. What did you get? Bihar is still among the poorest states in the country,” Gandhi said at a rally in Darbangha on Wednesday.
Further, taking on the NDA on the issue of agriculture, the former Congress leader said that for the first time he had seen effigies of a prime minister being set afire across Punjab.
“For the first time on Dusshera, Raavan, Meghnath and Kumbhkaran were not set on fire, instead the effigy of the Prime Minister was burnt. Personally, I was not glad to see this sight. After all, he is the PM, but one needs to understand the level of anger that has been simmering among farmers against the NDA for so long,” Gandhi said.
Campaigning for his party’s candidate Ashok Ram in the area, Gandhi said that just as the right of Bihar’s farmers to minimum support price was snatched in 2006 when mandi system was abolished by Kumar, the NDA was snatching the right of farmers to MSP across the country through the three farm bills.
He also criticised the NDA government’s alleged failure in fighting the coronavirus pandemic. “When the Prime Minister abruptly announced the lockdown, without giving a moment’s notice to lakhs of labourers from Bihar living in different parts of the country, he left so many people in lurch. The 22-day war that he announced was not against coronavirus, but against labourers who died of hunger and thirst,” Gandhi said.
The Congress leader was addressing the crowd on Wednesday while voting was underway in 71 constituencies for the first phase of polling in the state.
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