Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on May 4 called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a ‘shahanshaah’ (king of king) who lives in a palace but is cut off from the public, responding to the PM’s ‘shehzada’ jibe for her brother Rahul Gandhi.
Addressing a public rally at Lakhani in Gujarat’s Banaskantha Lok Sabha constituency to canvass for her party candidate Geniben Thakor, she also accused Modi of using the people of Gujarat for power and then forgetting them.
“He calls my brother ‘shehzada’. I would like to tell him that this shehzada walked for 4,000 kilometres from Kanyakumari to Kashmir to listen to your [people’s] problems, met my brothers and sisters, farmers and labourers and asked how we can resolve their problems,” she said.
Lok Sabha polls 2024 updates, May 4
Addressing a rally in Gujarat on Thursday, PM Modi had targeted Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, saying Pakistan was eager to make the ‘shehzada’ of the grand old party India’s next PM as the country’s enemies want a weak government at the helm.
“On the other hand is your ‘shahanshah’, Narendra Modiji. He lives in a palace. Have you ever seen him on TV? Clean clothes with not a single speck of dust, not a single stray hair strand. How will he ever understand your hard work, your farming? How will he understand your problems, that you are overburdened with inflation?” she said.
She said several BJP leaders have said on record that their government will change the Constitution if it returns to power.
“When they say they want to change the Constitution, it means they want to reduce and weaken all the rights given to you in the Constitution. If you understand politics today, the biggest thing that Modi has done in the last 10 years is to weaken the rights of the public,” she said.
Ms. Gandhi also questioned Mr. Modi’s decision to not contest the Lok Sabha elections from Gujarat. This is because he used the people of the state and forgot them, she claimed.
“Modi is surrounded by power and no longer recognises you. Why is he not contesting elections from here if he is not cut off from the people of Gujarat,” she asked.
She said Mr. Modi was contesting from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and not Gujarat because he is cut off from the people of Gujarat.
“He used you, earned power, name and respect with your support and went on to become the prime minister only to forget you and cut himself off from you,” she said.
Ms. Gandhi also attacked Mr. Modi over his statement that Pakistan wanted to make Rahul Gandhi the next PM of India and use X-ray machines to steal ‘mangalsutra’ and gold belonging to the public when voted to power.
“The election is in India, and Pakistan is being talked about…Such low-level utterances by the country’s prime minister? You elected a prime minister to keep the country’s respect intact, one whom the entire country could see talking sense, because this has been our tradition,” she said.
She alleged that the PM speaks a lot of lies.
“Earlier it was limited to lies, now he utters such gibberish that Congress will steal one of your two buffaloes. Congress had been in power for 55 years, did it ever steal your buffalo and jewellery using an X-ray machine,” she asked.
The PM is making such statements because the public is waking up and asking him not to make Hindu-Muslim the issue in an election and instead talk about electricity, water, jobs and inflation, she said.
She said that the then Congress government formed cooperative sectors like Amul and Banas Dairy for the prosperity of farmers and claimed that today BJP leaders are trying to capture the sector.
Equality is enshrined in the Constitution. “Today the prime minister himself says that those fighting for equality are anti-Constitution. You must understand how you are being misled,” she said.
Ms. Gandhi also targeted mr. Modi over unemployment and said that over 30 lakh central government posts are vacant.
She claimed that the unemployment rate is the highest in 45 years and accused Modi of giving away government properties to billionaires which she claimed has reduced jobs. Privatisation of government jobs has ended reservations, she said.
“Youth are jobless but the government is not filling these posts. You are focused elsewhere and not on job creation. When you don’t get a job, you work for outsourcing and contract employment,” she said.
“All the [country’s] properties now belong to the billionaires. If the government understood [this] properly, they’d know that they need to create jobs…But he does not think about you…All policies are meant for billionaires,” she said.
She said Modi’s biggest policy is to make everything “for the success and prosperity of billionaires”.
Ms. Gandhi said the now-scrapped Electoral Bonds were “a scheme for corruption”.
“The government came out with a scheme for corruption. At one time, corruption was committed with stealth. Now it is being committed through a scheme. And you still have the gall to say you are honest and all other leaders are corrupt,” she said.
She said the BJP became the world’s richest political party by taking away the properties belonging to the public.
In Banaskantha, which will go to polls in the third phase on May 7, the BJP has nominated Rekha Chaudhary, an engineering college professor and first-timer, against Congress’ Thakor.
