Riding on the popular ‘pro-poor’ welfare programmes implemented by the State government in Karnataka, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday came down on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP ) for its reluctance to waive farm loans taken from nationalised banks.
Addressing a massive party workers’ convention in Raichur, the Congress vice-president said the people of Karnataka were aware of what the Congress government had done for them and would surely vote the party to power again.
“The BJP had promised to create two crore jobs in the country every year. But they created only two lakh jobs. In contrast, the Congress government in the State alone has created 30,000 jobs each year. The BJP’s ‘Make in India’ initiative is an utter failure as no new factory has been established and no job has been created under it,” he said.
Claiming credit for implementing Article 371(J) of the Constitution that provided special status to six districts of Hyderabad Karnataka region, Mr. Rahul Gandhi said: “The special status to this backward region is a result of years of struggle. When the Congress-led Karnataka government appealed to the BJP-led Union government to consider the demand, the then Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani wrote back to the Karnataka government rejecting the demand. We had promised the people of the region that we would fulfil the demand if we were voted to power at the Centre. We kept our word,” he said.
The total amount that BJP government in the State had spent for the region in its five-year term has been spent by the Congress government in just three months, he added.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, in his address, recalled BJP State president B.S. Yeddyurappa’s statement that he would mobilise farmers to lay siege to the Vidhana Soudha demanding farm loan waiver. He challenged him to lay siege to Parliament to pressurise the Centre to waive farm loans taken from nationalised banks. “After farm loan waiver, Mr. Yeddyurappa has stopped talking about farmers. Now, they are resorting to dividing people communally for votes. This is the land of Basavanna and Kuvempu. Their communal agenda will not work here,” the Chief Minister said.
Congress leader in the Lok Sabha M. Mallikarjun Kharge, AICC general secretary in-charge of Karnataka K.C. Venugopal, KPCC president G. Parameshwara, and several other party leaders were present at the event.
Breaking from tradition
Contrary to the Congress tradition of not declaring its Prime Ministerial candidate before elections, all the leaders on the dais, including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Dr. Parameshwara repeatedly appealed to the people to vote for Congress to make Rahul Gandhi the next Prime Minister of India.
