BHOPAL/BARWANI: Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused BJP of "stealing the people's government" after the last assembly elections in MP.
"We had promised to waive farm loans in the last assembly polls. We wrote off loans of 25 lakh farmers but BJP people and their big industrialists friends, stole your government. The Congress MLAs elected by you were stolen by BJP to form a government here," Rahul said at a poll rally at Rajpur of Barwani district.
"This is a government of theft. They stole MLAs by giving them money and brought down the welfare-driven Kamal Nath government," he added.
Rahul addressed an election rally in Satna as well, where he said that "all castes have disappeared" for BJP since the day he started calling for a caste census.
"The Prime Minister, who repeatedly claims he is an OBC, forgot about all castes and now claims that 'garib' (poor) is the only caste in the country," the Congress MP from Wayanad said, adding that a caste survey will top priority for Congress after it forms the government.
"The PM's aircraft cost thousands and he wears suits worth crores and yet, he says in every speech that he is an OBC. By repeating this, he became the Prime Minister of this country," he said.
"These days, however, the PM is saying that in India there is just one caste, and that is the poor. Narendra Modi is OBC, yet in the country there is no OBC, Dalit, tribal or general - just 'garib'. Do you know why castes of India have disappeared from the mind of Narendra Modi? Because I started the discussion on caste census. When I said, let us find out how many Dalits, tribals, OBCs are there in the country, since then he says there are no castes. Castes have disappeared, finished."
The Congress MP argued that PM Modi does not want to tell the Dalit, tribal and OBC youths the truths about the nation. He said that during the Bharat Jodo March, when he walked from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, he mostly met OBC persons.
There are approximately 50% OBC people in the country. Narendra Modi and Shivraj Singh Chouhan claim that in Madhya Pradesh, the government is being run by OBCs. So, I have taken out the data. The governments of MP and New Delhi are not run by peoples' representatives but bureaucrats. MP is run by 53 officers who decide where the budget is to be spent. I heard that there is an OBC government here, so wanted to find out how many of these 53 officers are from OBC category? Only one. If the budget is of Rs 100 in Madhya Pradesh, then the lone OBC officer decides on just 33 paisa. What kind of OBC government is this?" Rahul asked.
"As soon as Congress forms the government in Madhya Pradesh, our first work will be the caste survey. And when the government is formed in Delhi, Congress will conduct the national caste census. Caste survey is the X-ray of the country. After the X-ray, every tribal, Dalit, OBC and general category youth will know how much is the population of each caste and what should be their participation," Rahul reasoned.
"Only after the caste survey will the real development of Madhya Pradesh and the country start. This is revolutionary work. It will change the country and the lives of crores of people," Rahul said.
He alleged that crop insurance worth Rs 35,000 crore has been given to only 16 companies that do not employ persons from OBC, Dalit or tribal communities. "This is the truth," the Congress leader said. "And Narendra Modi has one work, that the real numbers of OBCs should not be known to the people. I will get that caste survey done. I am giving the guarantee that Congress party will get this done," he added.
The Congress leader accused the BJP governments of supporting only a few big industrialists while "finishing off the businesses of small traders, farmers" through demonetization and GST.
During his Bharat Jodo Yatra, he said that he met a porter at a railway station who had a civil engineering degree but was forced to work as a porter because he didn't get a job. "This is the truth about this state and the country," Rahul said.
"The youth of India are hard-working and smart. But big industrialists do not give jobs. Small traders, who run small and medium businesses are the people who give jobs. Earlier, there used to be lakhs of small units that gave plenty of employment. Then, the Narendra Modi and BJP government came and they started attacking these small business units through demonetization and GST," Rahul said.
"GST is not a tax, it is a weapon to attack farmers, small and medium businesses. For the first time in India, farmers who are the backbone of the country pay taxes - 12% on tractors, 18% on pesticides and 5% on fertilisers," Rahul said.
"Who pays GST? It is paid by the poor of this country. GST is paid by OBCs, Dalits, tribals and the poor of the general category. The BJP governments takes GST from the poor and hands over all the money in the banks to three to four industrialists," he alleged.
"In MP, 18,000 farmers have committed suicide in the last 18 years because of debt. BJP did not pay them a fair price. They had to take loans and sell their land," he said.
Referring to the Sidhi incident, the Congress leader said, "Have you seen anyone urinating on an animal? But a BJP leader urinated on the face of a tribal, shot a video and made it viral. They are shameless."
Rahul said that BJP calls tribals 'Vanvasi' to create a premise to evict them from their land after the forests are destroyed. On the other hand, Congress considers them 'Adivasis', or the first and real owners of the land.
"BJP emphasizes educational courses in Hindi so that tribals are left behind. We say, study both Hindi and English, so that you can benefit in the country as well as abroad," Rahul reasoned, adding: "Congress wants children from tribal communities to become doctors, engineers, lawyers and industrialists, but BJP wants to keep them away from English education. BJP leaders want their sons and daughters to study English but they want tribals to stay away." TNN