West Bengal has emerged the number one state in terms of rape: Rahul Gandhi

Murshidabad: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in the state saying that the women in Bengal were the worst sufferers despite having a lady chief minister.

"Women in Bengal are the worst sufferers in the whole country though the state is having a lady chief minister Mamata Banerjee," Gandhi said at an election rally on Saturday.

"Today, Bengal has emerged the number one state in terms of rape," he alleged.

He also criticised the Trinamool Congress government for "faking claims that it was pro-poor".

"Mamata Banerjee is saying that Delhi was not sending money to the state for schemes like MNREGA. This is not true," the Gandhi scion said.

"Delhi has sent money to the state but unfortunately the funds went back for lack of utilisation. Then how she claims that the government is for the workers and the poor people," he questioned.

"The real fact is that the TMC government works only for the party workers and not for the poor," he alleged.

Gandhi said that people felt that progress would usher in the state with the change in colour from red to green. "But nothing has happened," he said.

Referring to the multi-crore Saradha scam, he said that more than 20 lakh people had been affected due to this. "But the Mamata government is trying to shield the guilty. But an agency is now probing the matter and everything will come out in the open."

In another diatribe against TMC, he said, "Mamata Banerjee government talks about creating jobs to eradicate unemployment.

"I want to ask the people present here, has unemployment gone away in the state. You see there is a response of an emphatic 'no'," he said.

He said if Congress came to power in 2014, then the government would set up a Delhi-Kolkata industrial corridor, which would provide job opportunities to lakh of youths from the state.