Lok Sabha Elections LIVE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed yet another public rally in West Bengal on Friday, giving a fresh thrust to the BJP’s campaign blitzkrieg ahead of the Lok Sabha polls amid escalating tensions with TMC chief Mamata Banerjee.
In the rally, Modi’s third in the state in a week, the Prime Minister attacked Banerjee for her sit-in protest and said it was the first time that a chief minister had sit on Dharna to protect those who had looted lakhs of people. The attack came three days after Banerjee called off her sit-in protest against “politically motivated” attempts by the CBI to question Kolkata police chief Rajeev Kumar in the Saradha chit fund scam case.
Simultaneously, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi addressed a farmers’ rally at Bhopal’s BHEL Jamboree Maidan. Attacking the Modi government over the Rafale report in Hindu, he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the aircraft deal directly with the French government without informing our Defence Ministry. He also attacked the government over the budget announcement of Rs 6,000 per year cash support for farmers, saying, “Modi government wrote off Rs 3.50 lakh crore debt of rich people but gives a paltry Rs 17 per day to farmers.”
A media report on PMO allegedly undermining the Rafale negotiations with France has given Congress chief Rahul Gandhi-led opposition fresh ammunition against the Narendra Modi government in the run-up to elections. Gandhi said the government can use the law against his brother-in-law Robert Vadra and former finance minister P Chidambaram, who are under the ED scanner, but must answer questions on Rafale.
Cornered in the Lok Sabha by the opposition, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Congress is “flogging a dead horse”.
Meanwhile, there is also speculation that the Congress president is likely to announce an unemployment dole, in an effort to match incentives announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Party’s media cell coordinator Narendra Saluja termed the MP event a “thanksgiving rally” where farmers would felicitate Gandhi for the farm loan waiver announced in the state after a Congress-led government under Chief Minister Kamal Nath took over.
Gandhi, during the campaign for the MP Assembly polls in November last year, had promised a farm loan waiver if his party was elected to power. “All top Congress leaders from the state, including (CM) Kamal Nath ji, Jyotiraditya Scindia ji (AICC general secretary) and Digvijay Singh ji (ex-CM), will participate in the rally,” he said.
Congress spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi claimed more than two lakh farmers from the state are likely to participate in the rally. The MP government had earlier said the Rs 50,000 crore farm loan waiver scheme titled ‘Jai Kisan Rin Mukti Yojana’ would benefit 50-55 lakh farmers.
Under the scheme, loans up to Rs 2 lakh of eligible farmers are to be waived off. The government has said that farmers will start receiving benefits of the waiver in their bank accounts from February 22.
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