If Congress retains govt in Rajasthan, it will come to power at Centre in 2024: Mallikarjun Kharge

PTI, Oct 17, 2023, 8:39 AM IST

Image source: PTI / File

Jaipur: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday said if his party retains its government in Rajasthan, it will also come to power at the Centre in 2024.

Kharge lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that he has been lying and dividing people, and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of copying the work done by his party.

He said by doing this, the saffron party wants to claim “copyright”, but people will not give any “copyright” to it and will remember the work of the Congress.

Launching an awareness campaign for the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project (ERCP) in Baran district, the Congress president said Modi talked about a “red diary” in his recent speeches and claimed that it has an account of the financial irregularities of the Rajasthan government led by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

“It is written in that red diary that the Congress will form its government again in Rajasthan after the upcoming Assembly polls,” he said.

Congress leader Sachin Pilot was not present at the event.

Taking a jibe at Modi and the BJP, Kharge said after seeing the Congress provide guarantees, others have also started doing the same.

“Now, the BJP is trying to copy the Congress. It has started making announcements on the lines of our announcements. We implemented the guarantee schemes in Karnataka, now BJP has also begun to talk about guarantees,” he said.

Kharge asserted that “if the Congress government is formed in Rajasthan again, the party will come to power at the Centre in 2024”.

He said people elected 25 BJP MPs from Rajasthan in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, but they could neither bring funds nor water for them.

He accused the prime minister and the BJP MPs from Rajasthan of betraying the people of the state.

On the Congress’s demand for a nationwide caste census, Kharge noted that Modi had accused the party of seeking to divide people through the exercise.

“It is the BJP’s habit of dividing people on the basis of religion and caste,” he alleged.

Kharge said Modi hardly attends Parliament and roams around poll-bound states. He said despite promises, the prime minister did nothing for the ERCP and the state government is working on the project by spending Rs 25,000 crore.

The ERCP is an ambitious project that was first proposed by the previous BJP government in Rajasthan to meet the drinking water and irrigation needs of 13 districts — Jaipur, Jhalawar, Baran, Kota, Bundi, Sawai Madhopur, Ajmer, Tonk, Dausa, Karauli, Alwar, Bharatpur and Dholpur.

The 200-member Rajasthan Assembly will go to polls on November 25 and the counting of votes will be taken up on December 3.

The Congress president asked people to teach a lesson to the BJP in the upcoming election.

Highlighting the schemes and programmes of the Gehlot government, he said the chief minister and the Congress understand the situation of the poor.

“It is the Congress that has worked for the poor and announced schemes for them,” he said.

Kharge said the Congress government waived farm loans worth Rs 16,000 crore and introduced schemes, such as the Chiranjeevi health insurance scheme with an insurance cover of Rs 25 lakh.

“You know the condition of Rajasthan. People here yearn for water and bring it from far-away places. The Centre does not even support such schemes. The central (jal shakti) minister is from here, yet the state does not get money from the Centre. Where does the money go?” he asked.

“We do not have a single MP to raise the voice of Rajasthan. Everyone says ‘Modi, Modi’, but Modi has cheated (people). The MPs who were elected and sent to the Lok Sabha also did nothing. They too have cheated people,” Kharge said.

Accusing the BJP of toppling elected regimes, he alleged that the saffron party forms governments by poaching MLAs in states where the people’s mandate is not in its favour.

However, in Rajasthan, Kharge said Gehlot saved the Congress government with the support of people.

Taking a jibe at Modi over a photo of him worshipping at Parvati Kund during his recent Uttarakhand visit, the Congress chief said it was just an act of showing off by the prime minister to underline his “greatness”.

“I was looking at his photo. He wore a white attire and underneath it, there was a jacket. It was just to show how great he is. Like elephants have different sets of teeth to eat and to show, the same thing goes for Modi,” he said.

Kharge said the Congress is the only party that has carried out development work for the poor, such as the Indira Gandhi Canal, hospitals like the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and big dams in the country.

He said the divide between the rich and the poor is widening and alleged that all those looting the country’s assets are “friends” of the prime minister.

Kharge said the BJP-led Centre waives loans of industrialists but when farmers talk about loan waiver, they get batons and bullets. He said thousands of farmers sat on a dharna on Delhi’s borders against three contentious farm laws of the Centre and 750 of them died, but the prime minister did nothing.

The farm laws have since been repealed.

On the issue of women’s reservation, Kharge accused Modi of misleading people by saying that the Congress unwillingly supported a bill in Parliament in this regard.

He said it was the Congress that had brought the bill for women’s reservation but the BJP had not supported it. He said the Congress has willingly supported the women’s reservation bill that was passed by Parliament recently.

“We sincerely want women to come forward. It is the Congress that gave the country a woman prime minister, a woman (Lok Sabha) speaker etc. Everything was done by us first. You (BJP) are copying us. You want to claim copyright, but the public will not give you any copyright. The public remembers and will remember the work done by the Congress,” Kharge said.

He also said a caste census should be conducted across the country.

Kharge clarified that his party is not against anyone, but only wants everyone to get their rightful due.

“There should be a census of the backward classes and the poor should get their share. We do not want to harm anyone. We want to move forward together. If we work on the basis of a census, the backward classes will get their rights,” the Congress president said.

Gehlot said the work on the ERCP was started when the BJP’s Vasundhara Raje was the chief minister but despite promises, the Centre did not give it the status of a national project.

He also claimed that there are differences between Raje and the BJP’s central leadership.

“You are angry with Vasundhara Raje, but why are you cheating the public?” the chief minister asked.

He said people are aware of the benefits that the ERCP will bring for eastern Rajasthan.

Gehlot said the ERCP has become a household issue in eastern Rajasthan.

He highlighted the schemes and programmes launched by his government and asserted that the Congress is going to retain its government in the desert state.

Rajasthan Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra called upon the party workers to launch a door-to-door campaign on the ERCP issue and raise awareness about it among people.

Senior Congress leader and former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot was not present at the event. He was in Delhi to take part in an exam for a promotion from the rank of captain to that of major in the Territorial Army.