Rahul mocks ‘marketeer’ Modi, ‘shining Gujarat’

Making his first appearance in poll-bound Gujarat, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday attacked Chief Minister Narendra Modi for "ignoring" the common man's voice and dubbed him a "marketeer" who was hardselling a "shining Gujarat" where people still faced problems like shortage of drinking water and crop failure.

The Gandhi scion addressed three back-to-back rallies in Jamnagar, Amreli and Sanand on Tuesday, the last day of campaigning for the first phase of Assembly elections for 87 constituencies on December 13.

"The Gujarat government and your chief minister do not listen to your voice. He just cares about his own voice. He thinks only about his dreams, not of his people," Rahul said at the rally in Jamnagar.

Calling himself a follower of Mahatma Gandhi, Rahul said he was the true "Rajpurush". "A true political leader is the one who works to make dreams of others true and forgets about his own. The true leader is the one who gives voice to others."

Recounting a family anecdote, Rahul said Mahatma Gandhi once slept on the floor in Motilal Nehru's home in Allahabad just because his comrade Jawaharlal Nehru, who was then in jail, had only the floor to himself.

In his 20-minute speech, Rahul also referred to the alleged lack of democracy in the state. "Does anyone know how many days the Assembly functions for... it functions only for 25 days and only for a day in monsoon session. And when it functions, opposition leaders are thrown out," he said. The Congress MP also raised the issue of pending RTI applications in the state and unemployment among the youth.

Attacking Modi's publicity campaign, Gandhi said, "Marketeers say Gujarat is shining but here(Jamnagar) water is available only for 15 minutes, that too on every fourth day. Is this Gujarat shining?"

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