Zeenews Bureau
Ludhiana (Punjab), May 09: AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi on Saturday scathingly attacked the BJP while simultaneously hailing the Prime Minister and the policies of the UPA-led government at the Centre.
While addressing an election rally in the Ludhiana, he criticised the erstwhile NDA government and said that it was not pro-poor and its “India Shining” campaign only benefited the rich and not the deprived.
Adding to this, Rahul remarked that his party had just made one promise to the people of the country and not 10-12. And that was if Manmohan Singh returned back as India’s Prime Minister then the ordinary man and the downtrodden would gain advantage.
Hailing the employment schemes launched by the UPA government, the son of late PM Rajiv Gandhi lauded the Congress for reaching the nooks and corners of the country to address people’s grievances and provide jobs to farmers.
He also praised the farmers, calling them the backbone of the nation. He said it were they who provided food to the entire country. Without taking names, Rahul attacked a BJP politician who had made ill-conceived remarks about the farmers. Saying this, he appreciated the efforts of the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government who had opened the doors of the banks to the farmers even more by providing a loan waiver amounting to more than Rs 70,000 crore.
Addressing the state of Punjab, Rahul reiterated that he was yet to come across any weak Sikh while at the same time vociferously condemning the comment that Manmohan was a weak Prime Minister.
Rahul also vigorously attacked the former BJP-led government for its tackling of the Kandahar crisis particularly since it had refused to confront the situation head-on without the help of forces.
Rahul also welcomed the nuclear deal and acknowledged the endeavour of the Prime Minister in this direction.
Appearing as the messiah of the poor, he said that it was necessary that funds allocated to the poor percolated down to them and he implied that this was a remote possibility in case of BJP-led government coming to power.
Talking about the recently growing menace of terrorism, he censured the non-secular actions of the BJP for its assault on Christians in Orissa, Muslims in Gujarat, their attitude in Maharashtra towards the people from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and the much infamous Mangalore pub attack. Denouncing all this, Rahul Gandhi stated that the BJP had disowned responsibility for the same and called them state-centric issues. In an obvious attempt to woo the electorate, he stated that this was the problem of India and not of each state separately.
Towards the end of his speech Rahul Gandhi remarked that praises were lavished on India from across the globe for its fast pace of development under the Prime Ministership of Dr. Manmohan Singh.
