Rahul lashes out at ‘control freak’ PM

Tribune Reporters

Jammu/Rajouri, December 16

In a last-minute effort to draw voters, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi tore into the BJP on Tuesday, but spared the NC and the PDP.

He lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for keeping everything under his control and charged him with not letting other ministries and departments to work independently.

“A bureaucrat in New Delhi recently told me that all wisdom had been coming from just one man,” Rahul said during a rally at Darhal in Rajouri district. He claimed that the Prime Minister had failed to deliver so far.

“He used to make statements of teaching Pakistan and China a lesson while campaigning during the Lok Sabha elections, but nothing happened till date,” he said.

While Rahul was addressing rallies at Bani in Rajouri district and at Darhal, Modi was reaching out to people of Billawar and Jammu.

The Prime Minister made scathing attacks on the Congress. It was for the first time that Rahul and Modi addressed rallies in Jammu and Kashmir the same day.

Apprising people of the work done during the UPA regime, Rahul said the government had worked for the poor and downtrodden and schemes like the MGNREGA and the NRHM were a few examples.

“Modi failed to implement his programmes and instead gave brooms in the hands of the people to clean India,” Rahul said. He was taking a dig at the Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Rahul said the UPA had provided Rs 20,000 crore to Jammu and Kashmir for better road connectivity and more railway projects, but Modi had facilitated Rs 6,000 crore for a businessman in Australia.

“This money could have been utilised for improvements in road connectivity, 11-km Ramban tunnel and Mughal road or constructing the Zojila tunnel,” he added.

He promised that if elected to power in the state, the Congress would provide ration at low prices, generic medicines for free and regularisation of daily wage and contractual workers. He asserted that the Congress favoured governance at the grassroots, for which the UPA regime had conducted panchayat elections.

Amir Karim Tantray & Shyam Sood