Leading a march in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, his former Lok Sabha constituency, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Saturday slammed the BJP government and said that decisions such as demonetisation, poor implementation of the GST and mishandling of the Covid-19 crisis have piled misery on the poor.
Gandhi’s comments came on a day when PM Modi laid the foundation stone of the ambitious Ganga Expressway project in Shahjahanpur. The 594-kilometre expressway — one of the longest in the country — will open new doors for Uttar Pradesh’s development, the PM said.
Speaking on the occasion, PM Modi said, “The modern infrastructure coming up in UP today shows how resources are utilized. You have seen how public money was used earlier. But today, public money is being used for UP’s development. Earlier, big projects were started on paper so that some people could fill their own coffers,” says PM Modi.
He added, “Some political parties have a problem with the country’s development. They have a problem with the heritage of the country because they worry more about their vote bank. But their discomfort with the development of the country stems from the fact that the dependence of the poor and common human beings on them is decreasing day by day.”
“You are aware of the situation today. Unemployment and inflation are the biggest questions that neither the CM nor PM will answer. PM was taking a dip in Ganga a few days back but won’t talk about unemployment. I’ll tell you why the youth is deprived of employment. Middle-class people and the poor were badly affected by some of the decisions taken by the Prime Minister, which also resulted in large-scale unemployment. Demonetisation, wrongly implemented GST, no help during the Covid crisis are the major reasons for unemployment in India,” said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
He further said that Mahatma Gandhi was a true Hindu while Godse followed the path of Hindutva. “I will tell you the meaning of Hindu. It’s someone who only follows the path of truth, the one who never gives up to fear, and the one who never converts his fear into violence, hate and anger…Its best example is Mahatma Gandhi,” Gandhi said.
“Mahatma Gandhi spent all his life understanding truth. And then there is Godse, a ‘Hindutvavadi’. Nobody calls him (Godse) a Mahatma because he killed a Hindu who always spoke the truth…Godse was a coward, a weak man… he could not face his fears,” Gandhi added.
Gandhi also paid tribute to the people of Amethi, saying that the city had helped him in his first foray into the world of politics. “I came into politics in 2004. Amethi was the city where I contested my first election. People of Amethi have taught me a lot about politics. You have shown me the way to politics and I want to thank each and everyone from Amethi,” he said.
Later, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra led the ‘Jan Jagran Abhiyan’ Padyatra in Amethi.
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