Date:14/12/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/12/14/stories/2007121455811200.htm

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Sonia Gandhi: it’s just a mask of development

Special Correspondent

“BJP’s true character exposed in seeking vote on communal sentiments”

— PHOTO: PTI

INTERACTION: Congress president Sonia Gandhi meeting supporters during an election campaign at Dabhoi near Vadodara on Thursday.

AHMEDABAD: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday said the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Gujarat was wearing a “mask of development” and the BJP’s “true character” in seeking votes on communal sentiments was exposed the moment it realised that the development plank could no longer “fool” the people.

The present Assembly election was not just for voting for one party or the other. “While voting on Sunday [in the second and final phase], you must be doubly careful in pressing the button on the electronic voting machine: are you on the side of truth and values, or are for untruth and falsehood?”

Ms. Gandhi was rounding off her campaign with a public meeting in Ahmedabad after addressing meetings in Dabhoi, near Vadodara, and Patan in north Gujarat.

During the BJP regime in the State, more than 80,000 industrial units had closed down, thousands of cases were registered against farmers, the law and order situation deteriorated and over 28,000 posts reserved for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes were lying vacant. Were these a sign of development, she asked.

In the name of implementation of irrigation projects like Sujalam Sufalam, funds were misappropriated, Ms. Gandhi alleged. In a State where incidents of kidnapping of children and rape and murder of women were on the rise, the people could not lead a free and fearless life.

The BJP government’s claim of fight against terrorism was a “mere mask” because the party did not have the leaders like Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi who sacrificed their lives fighting against terrorism.

On the contrary, it was during the NDA government at the Centre that three terrorists were taken to Afghanistan and released there. From there the terrorists grouped and again mounted an attack against India, including on Parliament, she said.

Balanced development

Making a brief reference to her party’s manifesto, Ms. Gandhi said the Congress believed in balanced development and if voted to power, it would ensure the reopening of all small and medium factories, create a special industrial development fund, restore to government doctors a non-practising allowance suspended by the Narendra Modi administration and withdraw all police cases registered against farmers for alleged power theft.

“If you want real democracy, real fearlessness and real freedom of life, elect a government which has sympathy for the poor and have-nots, which will usher in real progress and real development and will not mislead the people with tall claims and falsehood,” Ms. Gandhi said.