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Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday hit out at Prime Minsiter Narendra Modi, who is also touring poll-bound Gujarat, and conducted a fact-check on the BJP’s claims of ‘development’ in the State.
Seeking an explanation from the ruling party and the Prime Minister on employment numbers, farm produce prices, loan waivers for farmers and demonetisation, the Congress leader promised to form a people’s government in the State.
Rahul also promised the farmers that a Congress government in Gujarat would waive farm loans within 10 days of assuming power. Election results are due in the State on December 18.
On the first day of his two-day tour to Gujarat, Rahul travelled Saurashtra districts including Junagadh, Gir Somnath and Amreli, and conducted public meetings, touching upon the troubling issue of lower prices of agricultural produce, especially groundnut and cotton.
At a rally in Visavadar in Junagadh district, Rahul lashed out at Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for ignoring the farm distress. “Modi ji and Jaitley ji say it is not their policy to waive farmers’ loan. They will let a farmer die of heavy burden, but won’t raise the MSP...Come December, when we form the government, I will do it within 10 days,” said Rahul to a large crowd of farmers from the district.
Junagadh is the second-largest grower of groundnut in the state, while the region also has large number of cotton cultivating farmers.
“When the UPA was in power, cotton price was ₹1,200 and Modi ji demanded ₹2,000. Today, prices have fallen to ₹800. Same is the case for groundnut.”
Rahul said that under the ‘Gujarat model’ of development, only few industrialists benefited. “I think vikas (development) is the code name used for his industrialist friends. In Mundra 45,000 hectares of land was given away to an industrialist friend of Modi ji at a throwaway price of ₹1 per sq meter. The industrialist then sold the same land for a price of ₹2000-5000 per sq meter to the government companies,” he alleged.
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