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Monday, Dec 10, 2007
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Modi government misleading the people on various counts: Rahul

Manas Dasgupta

Congress road show on last day of campaigning for first phase of Assembly elections

— Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

Reaching out: Supporters greet All-India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi in Surat on Sunday, the last day of the campaign for the first phase of the Gujarat Assembly elections. Mr. Gandhi took part in a road show in the textile city and it met with an overwhelming response.

87 constituencies to go to the polls on Tuesday
“A government that believed in deceiving its people cannot take the State forward”

SURAT: All-India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Sunday attacked the BJP government in Gujarat for “spreading lies” and “misleading” the people on various counts, particularly on the issue of development and attracting investments. He was addressing gatherings during a road show here on the last day of the campaigning for the first phase of the Assembly elections to the Assembly. On Tuesday, 87 constituencies will go to the polls.

Reminding the people, particularly the youth, about Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings on truth and non-violence, he said the BJP government in the State followed only “untruth” with the belief that a falsehood stated repeatedly and with force was accepted as truth by the people.

He said a government that believed in deceiving its people could not take the State forward in the true sense. While the Narendra Modi government claimed Gujarat to be the number one State in attracting investments, the truth was that at least five other States, including Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, were ahead of it in investments.

Contrary to the government’s claim of bringing illiteracy down to 10 per cent, more than 30 per cent of the people in the State were still illiterate. Not one acre of land had been allocated to the tribals, while the government was claiming to have given thousands of acres of forest land to them. He said that if the government’s claim of adequate power generation and uninterrupted power supply to the farm sector was true, the farmers would not have suffered so much in the State and the power rates would not have gone up four times during the BJP regime. Whatever progress Gujarat had achieved so far was all due to the hard work and enterprise of its people and not because of the BJP government.

Mr. Gandhi said it was time the people learnt to differentiate between truth and falsehood and support a party that would provide a government sympathetic to the cause of all sections of the society and take the State and the country forward.

Praise for people

Complimenting the people of Surat, engaged in the diamond cutting trade, Mr. Gandhi said he felt proud as an Indian when he was told during a trip to Australia that the diamond cutters of Surat were providing succour to the people of an entire town there depended on a diamond mine. But for the hard and enterprising people of Surat, the Australian town would not have survived.

To the youth, he gave his own example and advised them to follow the Gandhian principles in life. “Many people say Gandhiji is irrelevant in today’s politics but whenever I find myself in confusion and look for an answer, I refer to Gandhian thoughts. I have always found a way out to my doubts,” he said.

Mr. Gandhi attracted a large number of youths at his four meeting venues, besides hundreds of people waiting on both sides of the road during his 40-km journey through the main roads covering five Assembly segments. Mr. Gandhi, also in charge of youth affairs, ended his “road show” minutes before the campaigning closed at 5 p.m.

While his mother and the Congress president Sonia Gandhi addressed about 10 election meetings during her four visits to the State in the last eight days, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed two meetings in one trip, it was the first time that Mr. Gandhi was drafted for the elections in Gujarat.

Congress sources said Mr. Gandhi’s “road show” in Surat was a last-minute decision of the party high command, particularly to woo the large number of “Hindi-speaking” migrant labourers in the diamond city.

After his arrival at the Surat airport, Mr. Gandhi, travelling in an open jeep at the head of a motorcade amidst very tight security, went round the city roads garlanding the statues of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on the way.

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