Sonia milks Tehelka in Amul town

AHMEDABAD/ANAND: For fear of polarising votes, if the Gujarat Congress leaders were confused about their stand on the Tehelka sting, which brought alive the horrendous tales of the 2002 massacres, Sonia Gandhi sorted out the dilemma on Saturday, attacking the BJP for "dragging Lord Ram into its dirty politics".
Addressing a mammoth ‘mahila samman sammellan’ outside a bustling residential locality in this milk capital, Gandhi chose to interpret the post-Godhra riots as a personal attack on the women’s self-respect during Modi’s regime and said now was their chance to throw this "misgovernment" out.Gandhi told the crowd that it was time to choose between the Congress or the BJP which "wants to make us a heartless society".
Citing various schemes launched for women by the UPA government she said that the Centre had given lakhs of crores of rupees for various schemes to Gujarat but was not sure how it was used.
Gandhi asserted that the Congress was for all religions. "The existing Gujarat government had nothing to do with society, politics, humanity or principles. The crimes that happened in 2002 and the truth that came out about them recently makes our heads hang in shame. Would any civilised society wish that its sisters or daughters go through such savagery or bodily abuse? What bigger insult to women than this?" she said.
She spoke about how Gujaratis had made a name in every corner of the world "but since sometime, within the country and outside people had started asking what kind of people were ruling Gujarat". Gandhi exhorted the women to raise their voices against such a government and ask the Modi government where did the women, farmers, adivasis or Dalits figure in its scheme of things? She charged that the BJP did not flinch before dragging Lord Ram in their dirty power game and was now emotionally blackmailing people on the Sethusamudram project, without bothering to tell the people that it was conceived during the NDA regime.
Urging the people to throw out the BJP government of "hate, injustice, corruption and create a living Gujarat in the true sense", she said the Congress would give a Gujarat where everyone would breathe easy which will be the real ‘Garvi Gujarat’.
leena.misra@timesgroup.com