Kicking off the Congress campaign in poll-bound Bihar, Rahul Gandhi today raked up the ‘ suit boot ki sarkar’ jibe to target the Modi government, warning people that they would lose their land and livelihood if NDA came to power.
Addressing a rally in this West Champaran region where Mahatama Gandhi had waged a battle to free farmers from indigo farming forced by Britishers, the Congress vice-president suggested that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the anti-thesis of the Mahatma.
“While the Mahatma shed his suit and donned a dhoti as he led the poor farmers, Modi who claimed to have started as a chaiwala (tea seller) started wearing Rs. 15 lakh suit after becoming Prime Minister,” Mr. Gandhi said, painting Modi and the BJP-led NDA as a ‘club of the rich’.
On the one hand, there is Gandhi ji who worked amid the poor and the labourers, shed his suit and on the other, there is Modi ji who meets only people who wear suit-boot and not the poor and the oppressed.
“He says that I and my friends wearing suit-boot will change India. Give two crore new jobs every year, provide 100 per cent enhanced minimum support price to farmers for their produce and would deposit Rs. 15 lakh in everyone’s account by getting back black money stashed abroad. Tell me whether any of these things happened?” Mr. Gandhi asked amid cries of ‘No, no” from the audience.
A day before the Congress is organising a mega kisan samman rally in the national capital, Mr. Gandhi warned people of the backward agrarian state that “Modi ji and his friends wearing suit-boot want to usurp your land. They say you give your land and they will give development and jobs to the youth of Bihar.
“Your land will be taken away and you will not get any employment. We have formed this alliance because we want to protect poor, weak and the oppressed. We want to save you from Modi ji and his friends.”
Mr. Gandhi said that if the BJP government came to power here, two-three people from Gujarat and Delhi wearing expensive suits will come and claim the land asking for removal farmers from there.
