Bilaspur/Solan (Himachal Pradesh), May 1 (IANS) BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi represents the ideology of the RSS, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said here Thursday.
Referring to M.S. Golwalkar, the second “Sarsanghchalak” (supreme chief) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Gandhi said Golwalkar believed India made a huge mistake by giving voting rights to women.
He also slammed Modi over his alleged links with the Adani industrial group, saying: “Modiji’s policy is to favour just one businessman, (Gautam) Adaniji”.
He questioned how the business house grew to Rs.40,000 crore during Modi’s tenure as the Gujarat chief minister.
“You ask that businessman how much employment he has given.”
“The total budget for Gujarat’s education and health is Rs.8,000 crore. But, one may be astonished to know that one corporate — Adani — was given land worth Rs.40,000 crore on a token lease of Re.1.”
“Moreover, Rs.26,000 crore was also showered as free power concession to this particular corporate.”
Gandhi said the Congress-led UPA government served the people of the country by launching many flagship programmes but it never boasted about the schemes. He added such policies succeeded in lifting more than 15 crore people above the below poverty line level.
He condemned the Bharatiya Janata Party for misleading the voters after promising implementation of “one rank, one pension” scheme for soldiers.
In a jibe at Modi, he said: “The day RTI (Right to Information) commissioners go to Gujarat or the Lokayukta reaches Gujarat, the state’s ‘chowkidaar’ will be behind bars.”
Speaking in the presence of Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and state Congress chief Sukhvinder Sukhu in Bilaspur, some 60 km from the capital Shimla, Gandhi said, “we exempted luxury tax for 10 years” to promote tourism in the hill state.
Gandhi gave the credit for development to the hard work of the people of the state.
Targeting BJP candidate and sitting MP Anurag Thakur, also president of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) and his father and former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, Gandhi said the previous BJP government went out of the way to give precious government land worth Rs.250 crore to the HPCA at Re.1.
Bilaspur and Solan towns are part of the Hamirpur and Shimla Lok Sabha constituencies. A total 38 candidates are in the fray.
Himachal Pradesh, which has four Lok Sabha seats, will go to polls May 7.
In the 2009 elections, the BJP won Shimla (reserved), Kangra and Hamirpur, while the Congress bagged the Mandi seat.