Bengaluru: With fissures in the ruling Congress-JD(S) coalition in Karnataka threatening to wreck the electoral prospects of several candidates, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday asked his party leaders and workers and also those of the JD(S) to work unitedly for the coalition victory in the Lok Sabha polls keeping in mind the objective of defeating Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“At the beginning itself, I would like to say that all workers and leaders of Congress should help JD(S) candidates wholeheartedly and JD(S) workers and leaders will have to support Congress candidates,” Gandhi said at an impressive joint rally of both parties here on Sunday.
Punching holes in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Main Bhi Chowkidar' campaign, the Congress president brought up former CM and BJP state president B.S. Yeddyurappa's reported dairy, in which he hints at payoffs amounting to Rs 1800 crore made to senior BJP leaders. "Mr Modi who has launched his Main Bhi Chowkidar campaign needs to answer from where this money came from? His cabinet colleagues received kickbacks from Yeddyurappa," Mr Gandhi said.
He further charged that the money which Yeddyurappa disbursed, came from the pockets of the common man, farmers and labourers. "Even in the case of Mr Modi, it is true; he works only for 12 or 15 of his industrialist friends. He works hard to safeguard their interests rather than the interests of 135 crore people," he said.
The Congress president claimed there was no dearth of resources but there is a dearth of will to disburse these resources equally among all. "Whenever the Congress demanded that farmer loans be waived, he (Modi) came up with the response that it was not possible. But we did it in Punjab, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The Congress has always worked for the upliftment of the poor, farmers and labourers whereas the BJP has worked to favour industrialists like Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Lalit Modi who swindled our country's resources and ran away with the help of Chowkidar (Modi),” he slammed.
Mr Gandhi also highlighted how his pet scheme - Nyay (Minimum Income Guarantee scheme) - would help improve the condition of 20 per cent of the poor in the country.
“This is not mere jumla like Mr Modi did in his electoral speech in 2014, when he said he will credit `15 lakh in everyone’s account,” he quipped.
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