Ahmedabad: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has taken a dig at Rahul Gandhi, who is leading Congress party’s ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra in the country, saying “nowadays he looks like Saddam Hussain.” Questioning Rahul Gandhi’s selected visits to Gujarat ahead of the assembly elections, Sarma said, "He is invisible in Gujarat. He comes to the state like a visiting faculty... He also did not campaign in Himachal Pradesh. He is visiting only those places where there are no elections... May be because he is scared of defeat."
The Assam Chief Minister also alleged that the Congress must have paid Bollywood stars to join Rahul Gandhi`s Bharat Jodo yatra, in an indirect reference to actors Pooja Bhatt and Amol Palekar who had joined the Yatra.
Earlier in the day while addressing a public meeting in Dhansura, Sarma called for stringent laws to curb `love jihad`, pointing out that during interrogation, Aftab Ameen Poonawalla, who`s accused of killing his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar in Delhi`s Mehrauli area, had reportedly said that he was dating only Hindu girls because they were emotional.
The Congress party`s Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) is all set to enter the first Hindi-speaking state - Madhya Pradesh - on November 23 (Wednesday).
Even as the Yatra would be entering the state a bit delayed behind its pre-programme schedule, party sources said almost all programmes will remain the same.
Senior Congress leaders - from Delhi to Bhopal, have maintained that BJY is not an event for "electoral gains". The party leaders claimed that it would be a "revolutionary moment" for not only national politics but Congress as well.
Veteran Congress leader and former Union Minister Suresh Pachouri has said, "Rahul Gandhi`s BJY has nothing to do with politics. Its only purpose is to save the harmony, brotherhood, and protect the Constitution of India. It is to raise the voice of farmers and poor people.”
The young faces of Madhya Pradesh Congress claimed that BJY will set the tone for polls. The Madhya Pradesh Congress led by state unit chief Kamal Nath had started its preparations soon after the pan-India Yatra began from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu on September 7. The Congress has organised as many as 18 sub-yatras from all 230 assembly constituencies in the state.
According to a senior Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee functionary, the yatra will cover three regions of Madhya Pradesh -- Malwa (Indore, Ujjain), Nimar (Burhanpur Khandwa, Khargone and Madhya Bharat`s part Agar and Susner districts during the next 13 days, which will began from November 23.
