Bhavnagar: BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday said the upcoming Gujarat Assembly poll was a fight between Congress's caste and dynastic politics, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's development agenda.
He added that Rahul Gandhi's visits to Gujarat have increased as the Congress vice president thinks the state is a "tourist spot".
Shah also raked up Congress leaders' statements on autonomy for Kashmir and on the Rohingya refugee issue, daring the Opposition party and Gandhi to make clear their stand.
"The Gujarat election 2017 is not just a fight between two parties or a fight for who will become the CM, but it is to decide if 'jaativad' (casteism) and 'vanshvad' (dynastic rule) will win or Narendra Modi's 'vikasvad' (development politics) will triumph," Shah said.
Shah was speaking shortly before the state BJP chief Jitu Vaghani filed his nomination papers from Bhavnagar (west).
"The people of Gujarat have to decide, will they choose Congress which had tried to create a caste divide between 1985 and 1995 by putting KHAM theory into practice, or choose the development and stability provided by the BJP government from 1995 to 2017," Shah said.
KHAM denoted a vote bank of four communities, namely, Kshatriyas, Harijans, Adivasis and Muslims.
"This time the Congress has tried to outsource its campaign and is just indulging in casteist politics to win the Gujarat polls," Shah alleged, in an apparent reference to the party's attempts to win over Patidars and other communities.
The people will have to decide if they want "casteism, dynastic rule, minority appeasement (of Congress), or the developmental politics and stability offered by BJP", he said.
PM Modi has "started the process of ridding India of the politics of casteism, dynasty and minority appeasement," he said.
"Rahul Gandhi thinks this is a tourist spot. He is coming here quite often... He should come here and give an account of what the Sonia-Manmohan government, which ruled in Delhi for 10 years, did for Gujarat," Shah said.
Gujarat goes to polls in December, where the first phase for 89 seats will be held on the 9th and for the remaining 93 seats it will be held on the 14th.
The results will be announced along with that of Himachal Pradesh on December 18.
(With PTI inputs)
