Rahul slams Akali-BJP retail FDI stand

Jan 28, 2012 - Tanveer Thakur |

Age Correspondent

Dodhamandi

Taking Punjab election campaigning to its crescendo, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Friday blamed the Akalis and BJP for standing against the FDI in retail bill which is going to benefit the farmers immensely.

Addressing an election rally in Gidderbaha constituency for Youth Congress leader Amrinder Singh Raja Warring who has been handpicked by him to contest from the Akali stronghold, Mr Gandhi said that the setting up of agro industries near farms would help farmers. He said that even though the BJP and Akalis realise the benefits of FDI, they oppose it for just because the Congress is bringing the idea.
Talking about corruption, Mr Rahul Gandhi said that the Congress government wanted to bring a “constitutional Lokpal”. “We tabled the bill, but the BJP and Akalis stalled the bill by voting against it.” He said that it is ironic that Mr Advani talks about corruption, “but can’t see corruption in Punjab, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh,” he added.
Mr Rahul Gandhi said that the UPA government has helped Punjab in last five years. It has given IIT at Ropar, IISC at Mohali, Central University at Bhatinda an aid of `145 crores for the upgradation of Amritsar International Airport. It is the Akali government, which has not worked and performed, he added. Addressing the farmers, the Congress general secretary said that “water-logging is a big problem in your area, but the Akalis have not done anything about it so far”.
He said that in 2004, when the NDA fought the election on the “India Shining” slogan, without realising the realities of the poor people, they were defeated. Similarly in 2012, the Akali-BJP government is raising the slogan of “Punjab Shining”, he said.
He attacked the Akalis for making hollow claims of turning Punjab into California. India cannot shine for Congress until there are poor people in it, he added.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/122375" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-25752127b6e15eb0ea6882af9ddb6ef2" value="form-25752127b6e15eb0ea6882af9ddb6ef2" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80931991" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>