JAIPUR: As the Congress launched the party manifesto for the Rajasthan elections, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge attacked Prime Minister Modi claiming that the PM was always abusing him or Rahul Gandhi.
“The Prime Minister has not done any work apart from abusing us in the Congress. He abuses me, Rahul Gandhi, and recently he has started abusing Ashok Gehlot as well. He says that I abused his father. Why would I abuse his father who is not in this world anymore, what right do I have to speak about his father? I myself lost my mother, sister and uncle at a young age. Just me and my father were left. I am telling this to let you know that we do not speak like him (Modi),” Kharge said in a news conference in Jaipur on Tuesday.
The Congress President seemed confident that the Ashok Gehlot government would buck the trend of Rajasthan changing its government every five years.
“Rajasthan is Congress’ stronghold, not from today but since 1926 when Congress released manifesto for Central Legislative assembly. Since then we have made only those promises that can be delivered,” said Kharge.
He also lauded the Ashok Gehlot government for fulfilling more than 90 per cent of promises in the previous manifesto.
“When we had brought MNREGA, a lot of people made comments and raised objections including BJP, and financial experts but Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh made it possible, in fact, in several states free ration was provided after the MNREGA work was done,” said Kharge.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said when I asked him and (Arun) Jaitely that there is enough money for MNREGA but still the budget has been kept low, are you going to abolish it? They said we will never abolish MNREGA as this is a living memorial of your failure. After this, a low budget was kept for MNREGA but it had to be increased after receiving pressure from other states which shows that the PM himself does not know about the impact of MNREGA,” he added.
Speaking about the caste census at the launch event of Congress’ manifesto for Rajasthan, Kharge said, “Not only in Rajasthan but caste census will be done in the entire nation. The caste census was started by us to provide for the poor and needy and not for anything else. PM Modi also claims to be OBC. He is from the Ghanchi-Teli community which was not in OBC earlier but after becoming Chief Minister (of Gujarat), he put the Ghanchi-Teli community in the Backward Class category.”
Apart from Mallikarjun Kharge, Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot, Govind Singh Dotasra, CP Joshi, Jairam Ramesh, and Bhawar Jitendra Singh were also present on the stage during the launch event.
BJP National President JP Nadda had already released the BJP’s ‘Sankalp Patra’ (manifesto) for forthcoming Rajasthan assembly polls in Jaipur.
Rajasthan is set to undergo assembly polls on November 25, and the counting of votes will be done on December 3.
Of the 200 seats, 199 seats will be contested on November 25 as the Congress candidate for the Karanpur assembly constituency in Rajasthan, Gurmeet Singh Koonar, passed away due to sepsis. The Election Commission, therefore, adjourned elections in the Karanpur assembly constituency.
In the 2018 assembly elections, the Congress won 99 seats, while the BJP won 73 seats in the 200-member House. Gehlot eventually took the oath as CM with the support of BSP MLAs and Independents. (ANI)