Congress national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday launched her party’s poll campaign for the 2023 Madhya Pradesh Assembly election by attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party Government in the State on corruption. She also questioned its record on providing jobs and keeping pre-poll promises.
Addressing a public rally in Jabalpur after performing Ma Narmada Aarti (prayers to river Narmada), she alleged that the Shivraj Singh Chouhan Government in the State was involved in 225 “scams” in the 220 months of Bharatiya Janata Party rule and provided only 21 government jobs in the last three years. The BJP has had an almost uninterrupted stint in power in State since 2003 except for when the Congress ruled for 15 months between late 2018 and early 2020.
‘List of scams longer than Modiji’s abuse list’
The list of scams, she added, was longer than the list of abuses mentioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a reference to the latter’s claim that he was targeted by Congress leaders 91 times with various derogatory words while campaigning for the recent Karnataka Election. Among them, she said was the alleged scams in Vyapam, Teacher recruitment and police recruitment scam, while also mentioning the recent incident at Mahakal corridor where several idols collapsed due to heavy wind on May 28.
She described the Chief Minister as a “ghoshnaveer” (someone who makes many announcements). She also said that of the 22,000 announcements made by Mr. Chouhan, only 1% were fulfilled. She questioned the timing of the recent announcement of Mr. Chouhan of increasing the women-centric Ladli Behna Yojana assistance amount from ₹1,000 to ₹3,000 in future, asking why he could not do it before.
Ms. Gandhi announced five guarantees on behalf of her party, including ₹1,500 cash assistance to women per month and domestic gas cylinder for ₹500 [under the Nari Samman Yojana, seen as a counter to the BJP’s Ladli Behna Scheme], 100 units free electricity and 200 units at half rate, revival of the old pension scheme and completion of loan waiver to farmers.
She cited the example of States such as Karnataka where the new Cabinet under the Congress cleared all such poll guarantees. She also mentioned other States ruled by the party in Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh where the governments had delivered on some of the promises such as the OPS.
Senior leaders of the Congress including former Chief Ministers Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh joined Ms. Gandhi for the Narmada Aarti, the rally also saw blowing of conches by religious leaders. Prior to the event, the Congress had set up 30-feet-long gadas [maces, the weapon used by Lord Hanuman according to Hindu mythology] across the city. At Ms. Gandhi’s rally, too, party workers presented a mace to Mr. Nath.
