BHOPAL: Congress president Rahul Gandhi has stuck to his chowkidar strategy, saying at an election rally in Madhya Pradesh's Sihora on Tuesday: "Yeh jo naara hai, bahut pyara hai.
Chowkidaar chor hai
(It's a beautiful slogan)."
"When I went to Chhattisgarh, there were some youngsters standing in a corner during a public meeting. I was talking about Rafale. The moment I said chowkidar, they said..."Rahul left the sentence hanging and the crowd responded, "Chowkidaar chor hai."
After a brief pause, he continued, "This is the awaaz from the heart of Hindustan and even the Prime Minister has to listen. Try it in the evening, at any main thoroughfare or crossroad, shout 'chowkidar'. Because the whole country today knows that 'chor hai, chor hai, chor hai, chor hai'."
Rahul alleged that by not giving the Rafale deal to HAL, Modi has "stolen" from Jabalpur, which has an ordinance factory. "For 70 years, HAL has manufactured fighter planes like MiG, Jaguar, Mirage and Tejas.
But the biggest deal was stolen from HAL and given to Anil Ambani. The French president said that he was asked to sideline HAL and give the deal to Anil Ambani," he alleged. "Had HAL got the deal, Rafale would have been made in India and the ammunition would have been manufactured at ordinance factory, Jabalpur, which once had 1 lakh employees," he said. State Congress leaders and ministers on the dais claimed that Jabalpur Ordinance Factory's jobs have shrunk to just 5,000.
Meanwhile, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said in New Delhi that the party's "chowkidar chor hai" campaign would continue. He said "chowkidar chor hai" was a political slogan which was never intended to be attributed to the top court, adding that Rahul and other political leaders have been using the slogan for a while now..