On the campaign’s last day before Thursday’s first phase of voting, Rahul Gandhi made a cautious entry into Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, his first visit to the state after elections were announced.
Congress strategists, knowing the BJP would use any favourable outcome as Modi’s triumph over Rahul, kept him away till the last moment.
With Gujarat seen as the “semi-final” before the 2014 general election, the two probable PM candidates both invoked Mahatma Gandhi’s name Tuesday. Mr Gandhi said if he had “any guru in politics, then he is Gandhiji”, and added: “Gandhiji had one simple rule — that the voice of not only every Indian, for that matter (that) of everyone in the world should be heard”. Without naming Mr Modi, he said in Gujarat “only one voice is heard”.
Mr Modi was quick to hit back, tweeting: “If Rahul Baba is walking on Gandhiji’s path, why is Bapu’s one wish incomplete — to disband the Congress after Independence?”
While on Monday the Congress had said Rahul would lead it in the 2014 elections, on Tuesday it clarified that both Sonia and Rahul Gandhi would lead the party and the “PM candidate will be decided after the polls”.