Dausa (Rajasthan): Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi today made an impassioned appeal to the people of Rajasthan to break the tradition and reelect her party’s government for uninterrupted progress and development in the state.
Addressing a massive public rally here today, Priyanka Gandhi said, the Congress had leaders like the Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot with such a long experience and young and dynamic Sachin Pilot working for the progress of the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party was a divided house.
Priyanka Gandhi said, despite the unprecedented inflation prevailing across the country thanks to the wrong policies of the BJP government at the centre, the Congress government in Rajasthan had tried its best to ameliorate the problems and suffering of people. She pointed out how the state government was holding “inflation relief camps” across the state to provide relief to people from the backbreaking inflation. She cited the example of ‘Indira Rasois’ in rural areas where people get a full meal for Rs 8 only.
The Congress general secretary also referred to the Chiranjeevi Health Insurance Scheme under which people were provided up to Rs 25 lakhs for treatment for various diseases. She said Rajasthan was the only state in the country to have such a healthcare insurance scheme.
She asked people to make a careful choice at the time of voting and ensure that they voted for the party, which looked after and worked for their welfare like the Congress party and not delivered hollow promises without any intent to fulfill them.
Quoting the example of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi donating Rs 21 to a temple in Rajasthan in a closed envelope, she said, the BJP does the same everywhere. She said, their election promises are like closed envelopes, which are found empty after the elections. She said, while the Prime Minister can afford to buy two aeroplanes for himself for Rs 16,000 crores and build a parliament building for Rs 20,000 crores, he had no money for waiving off the debt of farmers or providing old pension scheme to government employees.
The Congress leader also referred to the Agniveer scheme and how it had led to a lot of youth deciding against joining the army. She said, a number of youth she spoke to told her that there was no point in getting recruited in the army after a lot of hardwork to get unemployed within four years.
Priyanka Gandhi said, not just by Agniveer scheme, the government had finished other sources of employment also. She said the Public Sector Undertakings, which provided a lot of jobs with reservations also, were sold out to friends of the BJP. Similarly, she added, farming and agriculture had no longer remained remunerative. Besides, the GST and demonetization had led to massive losses to small sector business and trade leading to large scale unemployment in the country, which right now was the highest in the last 45 years.
Making a strong case for reelecting Congress government in Rajasthan, Gandhi listed various public welfare schemes including the Chiranjeevi Health Insurance Scheme, debt waiver for farmers, “zero electricity bill” to one crore consumers, gas cylinder for Rs 500, over 300 new government colleges and 9 new government universities.
Gandhi cautioned people against being distracted by the use of religion and caste by the BJP. She said these were emotive issues and were deliberately raised during the elections and urged people to be careful about getting carried away with these issues.
Among those present included Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, AICC general secretary incharge for Rajasthan Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Sachin Pilot, Govind Singh Dotasra, CP Joshi and others.
