Modi taunts Mulayam, says SP chief cannot make a Gujarat

By Ratan Mani Lal Lucknow: In many ways, Uttar Pradesh has long been considered the laboratory of political experiments. In the run-up to this year’s general election, hopefuls of the top post from all major political formations are trying every trick in the electoral trade to put across their message to the electorate which sends 80 representatives to the Lok Sabha. January 23 (Thursday) was one such day, which saw Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and Rahul Gandhi of the Congress speak in different voices in three different locations in eastern Uttar Pradesh but with the same message: our party is best suited to rule India for the next five years.[caption id=“attachment_1356043” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. PTI[/caption] Narendra Modi addressed a huge rally on the outskirts of Gorakhpur, while Mulayam addressed an equally vast congregation 200 km away at Varanasi. About 145 km south from both cities, Rahul Gandhi spent the second day of his tour to his constituency. While Modi taunted the father-son duo of Mulayam and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav for following him wherever he went, Mulayam raised the spectre of a Modi with “bloodied hands” aiming to rule the country. Rahul, for a change, relented from his usual reticent self and not only talked to mediapersons but stopped on roadsides to talk to the people of Amethi. It may be a carefully-planned co-incidence, but the Samajwadi Party rallies have been held on the same day as Modi’s on at least four occasions. While Modi’s rallies are generally planned one to two months in advance, for Mulayam and Akhilesh it does not need a big preparation since their party is in power in the state. For the 23 January rally also, Akhilesh had planned the formal launching of several development programmes meant for Chandauli district, Varanasi and adjoining areas. In his speech, Modi referred to Mulayam as Netaji—this is how Mulayam is commonly known as in SP and government circles—and said “Netaji says he does not want UP to become another Gujarat. He cannot do so also… it requires a 56-inch chest to do so. He doesn’t know what it means by Gujarat. It means 24-hour power supply, 10 percent growth and endless opportunities." In UP, on the other hand, “Netaji has failed to provide security, jobs or development. Examinations are not held on time, there is no fertiliser, agriculture and sugar industry are ruined because of politics in the last ten years.” He said while the “rulers” had been given 60 years, he asked the people to give him, a “sewak”, their trust for just 60 months and he will return it with “interest”. The state, he said, could progress greatly on the strength of agriculture and milk production only. He clubbed SP, Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress as being together with one force controlling them all—sabka malik ek—“and you know who that is”. His appeals evoked thunderous applause from the nearly three lakh-plus crowd as did his comment that the Gorakhpur people had won his heart, and that the sounds from Gorakhpur were resonating in Varanasi. He also referred to Dalits being used as vote bank by certain people but “they (Dalits) voted for BJP in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh”. Mulayam addressed a vast gathering in Varanasi in the presence of Akhilesh, ministers Azam Khan and others. He created a scare of what will happen to the state if Modi became the prime minister, wondering why the BJP had chosen Modi, having “blood on his hands” as its prime ministerial candidate. “We do not discriminate between castes and communities, we are running an ideal government in Uttar Pradesh,” he said and appealed to the people to support SP to an extent that the party played a crucial role in forming the next government at the Centre. Comparing the performance of the Gujarat government with that of UP, Mulayam asked the people to find out whether the Gujarat government had given unemployment allowance, waived loans of farmers or given special facilities to women as the SP government had done here. He also criticised the Congress-led UPA government—which his party has been supporting for the last ten years—for being involved in corruption. In Amethi, on the second day of his visit Rahul Gandhi displayed a rare candour on his travels within the town. He not only stopped at the way side to chat with young men and women, he also spent quite some time to talk with mediapersons. “It is for the first time in ten years that Rahul had called in the media to talk to us. May be it is the result of the campaigning of Aam Admi party’s Kumar Vishwas,” said a TV journalist. Rahul, too, alluded to the presence of Vishwas by saying that “I belong to Amethi, there are others who keep coming and going…”. He blamed the state government for the poor condition of electricity supply and roads, saying that the Centre released the money for everything but the state government had to do the work. But the most important statement that came from him was the admission that he would consider becoming the prime minister only after the Congress won the election. “In a democracy it is the MPs who choose the prime minister. If our party wins the election then I will consider the request,” he said. The dream of the people of Amethi to have their MP as PM, it appears, may still be a distant one.