Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday launched her assembly poll campaign in Bihar, and claimed that neither the people nor Chief Minister Nitish Kumar were getting respect as the double-engine government was being "run from Delhi".
Vadra, who was scheduled to address two rallies during the day, had to cancel the one at Khagaria as her helicopter could not take off due to bad weather. She, however, travelled by road from Patna for the election meeting in Begusarai.
Before leaving for Begusarai, she briefly interacted with journalists, criticising the NDA for "failing" to fulfil poll promises during the two-decade-long rule in Bihar, and voicing confidence that the INDIA bloc will form the next government.
Upon reaching the venue of the rally, she began her more-than-30-minute-long speech with the remark, "Since I could not take the chopper, I drove to this place and behold the sight of vast tracts of fertile land along the Ganges. So much poverty you people have suffered despite so much of natural wealth all around".
The Wayanad MP claimed, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi says the state will grow under a double engine government. Please do not get fooled. It is just one engine, and that is run from Delhi. The people of Bihar have no platform to voice their demands. Even Nitish Kumar ji, the Chief Minister, enjoys no respect".
She also alleged the PM and Home Minister Amit Shah "spend their entire time in the state blaming Nehru and Indira Gandhi for the problems Bihar faces today".
"And they are trying to cheat you with the promise of one crore jobs. Why could they not work for job creation until now?" asked Vadra while addressing the rally.
Underscoring contributions of her ancestors, she claimed that the BJP and its leaders need to remember that most of the factories and institutions like IITs and IIMs were set up when the Congress was in power and Nehru and Indira Gandhi were prime ministers.
The Congress leader, who had joined her brother Rahul Gandhi during the 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' in Bihar, also alleged that with the deletion of 65 lakh names from the voters' list during SIR, the affected people have been "robbed of their rights".
"Ever since coming to power, Modi has been gifting away public wealth to his friends who are big businessmen. To divert public attention, they have tried divisive politics and fake nationalism. Now they are resorting to vote theft," Vadra alleged.
"The right to vote, guaranteed by the Constitution, is precious. Losing it could lead to your deprivation of all rights that you enjoy as a citizen. Vote to protect that right," she appealed to people during the election meeting.
The Congress MP alleged that the ruling NDA also sought to "buy out your votes by bringing in schemes, just ahead of elections, as part of which women are getting Rs 10,000".
"I would ask my sisters not to put their votes up for sale. Take the money, but do not vote for them in return," she urged women voters.
Vadra also lauded Rahul Gandhi, who is the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, for "relentlessly pursuing the cause of social justice, needed so much in a country where a large part of the population does not get its due because of caste differences".
The Congress leader also charged the BJP with "opposing" the caste survey in Bihar, the report of which was published while the grand old party was sharing power in the state.
She also claimed that states like Telangana, which is ruled by the Congress, and Rajasthan, where the party was in power till a year and a half ago, had a "much better track record in social welfare" and promised that the same will be ensured in Bihar if the INDIA bloc is voted to power.
Vadra also rubbished the NDA's claim that "jungle raj will be back" if the RJD-helmed alliance came to power and cited the murder of a political worker two days ago and killings of many businessmen in the recent past to underscore that the law and order situation was "already bad" in the state.
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