Patna/Ranchi: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday that the Gujarat model of development would burst after the Lok Sabha election – just as the BJP’s “India Shining” burst after the 2004 polls.
He was addressing rallies in Aurangabad in Bihar and earlier in Jharkhand’s Godda district.
He formally started the party’s election drive in Bihar on Tuesday.
“I would like to remind you that in 2004, BJP’s campaign balloon of ‘India Shining’ exploded and the Congress-led UPA government was formed. This time again, BJP’s Gujarat model campaign balloon will again rupture and the UPA will form the government,” Gandhi said with full confidence in Aurangabad.
He promised that UPA-III would pass the Women’s Reservation Bill.
“BJP’s campaign balloon of Gujarat model is not fit for others. Bihar needs Bihar model in place of Gujarat model,” Gandhi said.
Congress candidate Nikhil Kumar, a former governor of Kerala, also addressed the rally.
Congress’ ally and RJD chief Lalu Prasad was absent.
Earlier in Godda, Gandhi said: “…Now, the opposition has come out with the Gujarat model and pumping air in the balloon and blowing it up. The model will also burst after the elections.”
He reminded people about the performance of the UPA-I and UPA-II governments during the last 10 years.
Meanwhile, the Congress said the “beginning of the end” of the BJP has started with the projection of Narendra Modi as an all powerful leader in the Lok Sabha elections.
“One dictator, autocrat, with a self-serving image (of the leader) has started the beginning of the end of BJP”, party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told reporters here. He said that this was not being stated by Congress leaders alone but many in BJP too.
The spokesman was reacting to a question on the poll jingle brought out by BJP showing Modi as a strong and decisive leader who will not allow the country’s interests to be compromised at any cost.
Singhvi also rejected the BJP charge that the government is not allowing Modi to address rallies, saying that it has given full freedom to everyone to go to every nook and corner and continue with his “false propaganda”.
Turning to the 2002 Gujarat riots, he said, “Let him (Modi) make a statement reflecting even a skeleton of an apology, forget an apology.”
He sought to take the wind out of BJP’s good governance and development plank by trotting out figures showing NDA in poor light.
“These are the supreme ironies from which the BJP and Narendra Modi are running away. People can lie and distort, but facts cannot be ignored. Rhetorics, polemics, slogans, supposed oratory skills or as we are now told lack of oratory skills will not make up for facts,” he said, adding that while Congress has walked the talk, BJP is trying to fool the people with slogans. (PTI)