Unemployment, inflation pressing issues, being pushed under the carpet: Priyanka Gandhi in Gagret

Rajesh Sharma

Una, May 28

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi today said the BJP sought votes in the name of religion, but its acts were against the preachings of all religions. Addressing an election rally in the Gagret Assembly segment, she claimed that 600 farmers had sacrificed their lives while demanding the MSP for their agriculture produce, but the PM had “ignored the growers”, while Adani was getting full support for his apple cold storage chains in the country.

Priyanka said the Himachal Government gave the benefit of the old pension scheme to 1.4 lakh employees, but the Centre was withholding the state’s share in the scheme. She alleged that the BJP indulged in horse-trading and spent hundreds of crores of rupees to destabilise a democratically elected government.

She said Himachal witnessed one of the worst natural disasters last year, but the BJP government at the Centre neither declared it a disaster nor gave a single penny to the state.

Priyanka alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was arrogant and was behaving “as if he was God”. “He has been fooling the people of the country for the past 10 years and some television channels close to him are portraying a rosy picture of the country,” she said, adding that the real issues of unemployment, poverty and inflation were being pushed under the carpet.

The Congress leader said a person of the stature of the Prime Minister should refrain from making “cheap remarks” such as that if the Congress came to power, it would snatch away the ‘mangalsutras’ of women.

She said Indira Gandhi donated her jewellery to the nation and Sonia Gandhi sacrificed her “mangalsutra” (Rajiv Gandhi) for the cause of the nation.

Priyanka said her party had ruled the country for 55 years, but the Narendra Modi-led BJP, which had ruled for just 10 years, was today the richest party in the world.

Priyanka said there were 70 crore unemployed youth in the country and Agniveers would join them after four years of service. In case of death in a war, Agniveers would not be given the status of a martyr nor would their dependants get any pension.

Priyanka said Rahul Gandhi walked 4,000 km to unite the people of the country, but the BJP not only suppressed his voice in Parliament but also suspended him from the House.

She said the Congress would provide 50 per cent job quota to women, besides a monthly financial assistance of Rs 8,500 to them. A corpus of Rs 5,000 crore would be created to fund the youth seeking to launch start-ups; farm inputs would be made tax-free, while the MSP on agriculture produce would be fixed. She said a stringent legislation would be passed to deal with examination question paper leak cases.

She sought support for Satpal Raizada for the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat and for Rakesh Kalia from the Gagret Assembly seat. She later addressed another public meeting at Badsala village in support of Congress’ Kutlehar candidate Vivek Sharma.

Priyanka also participated in a roadshow at Mehre in the Barsar constituency in Hamirpur district.