Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, should stop fooling people, charging that the Gujarat model was not in the interest of the masses.
Addressing a rally here, Mr. Gandhi said: “None can make fools [ulloos] of Biharis. The people of Bihar will make their own model and run it well. They don’t need any model. All that needs to be done is give them a free hand. You don’t suffer from any shortcomings.”
The Gujarat model, he explained, was nothing but forcible acquisition of land from farmers and giving it to a few favoured people at the cost of toffees and balloons. More that 45,000 acres of land were handed over to one person alone for a token price of Rs. 300 crore, Mr. Gandhi said. This “toffee or chocolate model,” he said, was not meant for the poor. “If you earn less than Rs. 11 in Gujarat you are poor, but if you’re earning is Rs. 12 you’re are rich.”
“In Bihar, the model you develop alone will succeed,” he said, running down the Gujarat model and Mr. Modi’s claims.
“The people of Bihar are endowed with one of the finest-tuned radar like those fitted in aircrafts and they can decipher what lies one is saying.”
Another person in Gujarat, the Congress vice-president said, was given equally precious land for just Rs. 30 crore and the manufacturers of Nano car were given Rs. 10,000 crore at an interest rate of just 0.10 per cent.
