Siddhartnagar/Maharajganj: "An elephant
sitting in Lucknow is eating all your money," Congress general
secretary Rahul Gandhi said at a rally here on Friday, stepping up
his attack on Chief Minister Mayawati while alluding to her
party BSP`s symbol.
Rahul, who has set a hectic pace ahead of the UP Assembly
elections, also trained his guns at the BJP for its slogan of
"India Shining" saying that India would not shine till there
was even a single poor in the country.
Blasting the UP government for alleged misuse of central
funds, he said, "an elephant sitting in Lucknow is eating away
all your money sent by the Centre for the benefit of poor in
UP."
Taunting Mayawati, he said this time UP has decided to
throw out this "elephant" and went on to add that Congress has
to be brought to power as only it knows how to run the
government.
Rahul prefaced his attack on the BSP supremo by saying
that there is no dearth of funds in the country and that UP
can get as much money as it needed.
"What is lacking is that money doesn`t reach you," he
said.
Rahul also did not spare the BJP. "In 2004 when Congress
gave the slogan of aam aadmi garibo, pichro ki sarkar,
opposition gave the slogan of India shining," Rahul said at
meetings in these districts on the fourth day of his five-day
long mass contact programme.
"They can give this slogan as they do not go to your
houses, not have food with you, drink water of your wells,
they can say India is shining", Gandhi said.
The Congress leader said that though there had been
progress but India is not shining in the villages and small
towns and it cannot shine till the day there is even a single
poor . "It would shine only when there is not a single poor
person visible in the country", he asserted.
Attacking senior leaders who sit in TV studios and debate
that India is shining , he said that it is shining in their
houses and airconditioned big vehicles but not in villages and
on the roads.
On the prospects of BJP in UP, Rahul said that it was
surviving on ventilator which would be removed after the
assembly elections.
Reminding the people that Mayawati had opposed MGNREGA
which has benefitted poor all over the country, he said that
she sees the world from helicopter and not move about on the
roads, neither takes food with the poor and drinks water of
their wells.
Rahul alleged that in UP, job cards were not being
properly prepared and even where they have been made the
Pradhans took them away and ministers made money from it.
He said those who earlier had small houses today have
palatial houses built from such ill-gotten wealth.
"In UP ministers and officials have benefitted but
not the poor and backwards", he said.
He said UPA government considers farmers as the backbone
of the country and so waived loans which helped them
throughout the country. "But things in UP are exactly the
opposite".
Farmers` land from Gorakhpur to Noida is being
snatched and when they ask for compensation, the state
government gives them bullets, he adding the farmers seeking
their rights are dubbed naxalites.
On the proposed land acquisition bill, he said that it
was facing problems in the committee by opposition members
who cannot come out in the open and say that they are
against farmers .
"This bill would change the entire structure and it
would not be stopped , it would definitely be passed either
today or after some days", he said.
Citing the contribution of the people from UP in the
development of other states like Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana
and Punjab, he said that people here are not lacking but it is
the UP government and its leaders who have been found to be
ineffective.
"We want that a government which belongs to all
castes, religions and sections comes to power in UP", he said
adding with such a government, UP would change in five years
and in the next ten years no one would recognise it is the
same state.
PTI
