Rahul sharpens pitch against Nitish govt

[1]

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Thursday continued with his verbal offensives on Bihar’s NDA government for the mismatch between its claims of the state’s ongoing progress and what he described as the unchanging ground realities. A miffed NDA responded by ridiculing the high-profile Congress MP.

While Gandhi’s speeches at two crowded public meetings at Sasaram and Obera had the same theme and almost the same words as in his previous public addresses in the campaigns for the Assembly polls, his tone had evidently grown more poignant.
The Congress in Bihar, banking on Gandhi’s campaigns to a large extent, hopes to gain in the sixth and final phase of Assembly polls for 26 constituencies scheduled on Saturday.
Adding further weight to his pet subject of the alleged corruption in the identification of Bihar’s BPL and APL people, the Nehru-Gandhi family’s scion said: “If you look at the BPL list, you will find the people in it wearing good shirts; but if you look at the photos of people in the APL list, you will find them wearing tattered shirts. But the Bihar government says it has brought about a turnaround in the state”.
“If Bihar is shining, why are people migrating outside looking for work? When they go to Maharashtra, Nitishjee’s partner Shiv Sena beats them up and Nitishjee keeps quiet,” said Mr Gandhi.
Accusing the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U)-BJP coalition government of accommodating corruption in the implementation of central welfare schemes like Indira Awas Yojana and MNREGA, Gandhi said: “If you visit villages, the poor will complain that they have had to pay bribes for construction of houses under the Indira Awas Yojana”.
Mr Gandhi, currently the MP from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh and credited with engineering the Congress revival in that state, voiced hope about his party repeating its UP electoral success in the Bihar Assembly polls. “It may take some time, but we will perform better in Bihar on the pattern of Uttar Pradesh and form a government of the common people,” Mr Gandhi said.