Jaipur, Oct 16: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday said if his party retains its government in Rajasthan, it will also come to power at the Centre in 2024.
Kharge also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of copying the work done by his party and said by doing this, the saffron party wants to claim “copyright”, but people will not give any “copyright” to it and will remember the work of the Congress.
Launching an awareness campaign for the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project (ERCP) in Baran district, the Congress president said Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about a “red diary” in his recent speeches and said it has an account of the financial irregularities of the Rajasthan government led by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
“It is written in that red diary that the Congress will form its government again in Rajasthan after the upcoming Assembly polls,” he said.
Congress leader Sachin Pilot was not present at the event.
Kharge asserted that “if the Congress government is formed in Rajasthan again, the party will come to power at the Centre in 2024”.
He said people elected 25 BJP MPs from Rajasthan in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, but they could neither bring funds nor water for them.
He accused the prime minister and the BJP MPs from Rajasthan of betraying the people of the state.
On the Congress’s demand for a nationwide caste census, Kharge noted that Modi had accused the party of seeking to divide people through the exercise.
“It is the BJP’s habit of dividing people on the basis of religion and caste,” he alleged.
Kharge said Modi hardly attends Parliament and roams around election-bound states. He said despite promises, the prime minister did nothing for the ERCP and the state government is working on the project by spending Rs 25,000 crore.
The ERCP is an ambitious project that was first proposed by the previous BJP government in Rajasthan to meet the drinking water and irrigation needs of 13 districts — Jaipur, Jhalawar, Baran, Kota, Bundi, Sawai Madhopur, Ajmer, Tonk, Dausa, Karauli, Alwar, Bharatpur and Dholpur.
The 200-member Rajasthan Assembly will go to polls on November 25 and the counting of votes will be taken up on December 3.
The Congress president asked people to teach a lesson to the BJP in the upcoming election.
Highlighting the schemes and programmes of the Gehlot government, he said the chief minister and the Congress understand the situation of the poor.
“It is the Congress that has worked for the poor and announced schemes for them,” he said.
Kharge said the Congress government waived farm loans worth Rs 16,000 crore and introduced schemes, such as the Chiranjeevi health insurance scheme with an insurance cover of Rs 25 lakh.
“You know the condition of Rajasthan. People here yearn for water and bring it from far-away places. The Centre does not even support such schemes. Where does the money go?” he asked.
“We do not have a single MP to raise the voice of Rajasthan. Everyone says ‘Modi, Modi’, but Modi has cheated (people). The MPs who were elected and sent to the Lok Sabha also did nothing. They too have cheated people,” Kharge said.
However, in Rajasthan, Kharge said Gehlot saved the Congress government with the support of people.
Taking a jibe at Modi over a photo of him worshipping at Parvati Kund during his recent Uttarakhand visit, the Congress chief said it was just an act of showing off by the prime minister to underline his “greatness”.
Kharge said the Congress is the only party that has carried out development work for the poor, such as the Indira Gandhi Canal, hospitals like AIIMS and big dams in the country.
He said the divide between the rich and the poor is widening and alleged that all those looting the country’s assets are “friends” of the prime minister.
Kharge said the BJP-led Centre waives loans of industrialists but when farmers talk about a loan waiver, they get batons and bullets. He said thousands of farmers sat on a dharna on Delhi’s borders against three contentious farm laws of the Centre and 750 of them died, but the prime minister did nothing.
The farm laws have since been repealed.
On the issue of women’s reservation, Kharge accused Modi of misleading people by saying that the Congress supported a bill in Parliament in this regard unwillingly.
He said it was the Congress that had brought the bill for women reservation but the BJP had not supported it. He said the Congress has willingly supported the women’s reservation bill that was passed by Parliament recently.
He also said a caste census should be carried out across the country.
“There should be a census of the backward classes and the poor should get their share. (PTI)
