Madam Sonia, let's publicly debate Gujarat model: Modi

Vadodara: BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in Vadodara on Thursday accused Congress President Sonia Gandhi of spreading lies about Gujarat and dared her for a public debate with him. [caption id=“attachment_1496337” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Narendra Modi has dared Sonia Gandhi to a debate on development in Gujarat.[/caption] Modi also said if lying amounted to violation of the model code of conduct, the Election Commission should take action against the Congress president. “Madam Sonia tried to mislead the people of Gujarat and the country, I challenge her for an open debate on this,” Modi, who is contesting from here as well as Varanasi, said at a public gathering. “Madam Sonia has said that Gujarat’s school drop-out rate is the highest in the country, which is not true,” he said, adding that after he came to power, the dropout rate for class 1 to 5 had declined to two per cent from 21 percent. On malnutrition, he charged Sonia was misleading the people. “Malnutrition is prevailing in other parts of the country as well. Gujarat has done pioneering work to fight this problem and CAG has also appreciated the work done by us,” he said. “There are two governments running at the Centre. One is the Indian government and other is this `mother-son’ government,” Modi said, referring to Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. “People know who divided this country. Who spread havoc in Andhra Pradesh, who has given a separate state status to Jammu and Kashmir and who separated states on linguistic basis. Who instigated fight between IB and CBI? People know who had played divisive politics in the country and Madam Soniaji your are doubting my integrity and my patriotism. For you India may be `matra-Bhumi’ (just a land) but for me it is a matru-bhumi (mother land),” Modi said. “The Prime minister has formed a committee to discuss the issue of poverty but for three years this committee has not met,” he said, referring to UPA’s claims on poverty removal. He also asked whether Rahul and Sonia Gandhi wanted to start “poverty-based tourism” in the country. Earlier, addressing her first election rally in Gujarat which goes to polls on 30 April, Sonia Gandhi had torn into Modi’s much-touted Gujarat development model and appealed to the people to reject the “divisive” ideology of RSS-BJP. PTI