False claims: Modi model causing more harm than good
May God please save this country from this model, says Sonia.
Congress Party candidate for Amritsar’s parliamentary seat Amarinder Singh gestures during an election campaign in Amritsar. PHOTO: AFP
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Saturday said the BJP’s much touted Gujarat Model is actually ‘Modi model’ under which the common man is suffering in the state, the Hindustan Times reported.
“BJP’s chief campaigner is selling Narendra Modi model in the name of Gujarat. What is happening in Gujarat under this model? Sikhs living there since past 50 years were being forced to leave the state,” Sonia said while addressing an election rally in Malwa belt of Punjab. “May God please save this country from this model,” she said.
She attacked the Akali Dal for joining hands with BJP and not raising its voice for the Sikhs in Gujarat. “The Akalis rather than raising voice against them (BJP) are colluding with them and they are partners in this atrocity against Sikhs in Gujarat,” said Sonia.
“In Gujarat, every second five-year-old child faces malnutrition and those who get INR11 (18 cents) per day are not considered below poverty line in Modi model,” she added.
Sonia said that around 45,000 acres of land in Gujarat had been given to one businessman at a cheap rate and under this model several people in the villages are still not getting potable water.
Accusing BJP of adopting an ideology in which common man will be identified not by his capabilities and skills but by his religion, language and caste, she said, the saffron party’s ideology is of “hatred, narrow mindedness and consistent hunger to achieve power” at the centre.
“Their (BJP) ideology wants to take the country on that path where nation’s entire power wrests with one person,” she said in an indirect reference to Narendra Modi. “They will take the country to a situation where the poor, weak and farmers will beg for their rights,” she said.
However, in contrast the ideology of Congress is development of farmers, poor, weak and every citizen of the country, she said adding that Congress is for peace and communal harmony.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 27th, 2014.