Hours ahead of voting for the second phase of Gujarat Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday accused the first family of Congress of interfering in governmental decisions during the UPA tenure and stalling development projects in the poll-bound state.
Hours ahead of voting for the second phase of Gujarat Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday accused the first family of Congress of interfering in governmental decisions during the UPA tenure and stalling development projects in the poll-bound state.
Citing e-mail exchanges between former Environment Minister Jayanti Natarajan and Rahul Gandhi, Union Minister Piyush Goyal accused the Congress president-elect of meddling in government decisions. Goyal said Rahul Gandhi stalled the Nirma project in Gujarat by instructing Natarajan to not give environmental clearance to it.
"We have accessed e-mail in which Jayanti Natarajan when UPA minister was even willing to go home to meet personal secretary of Rahul Gandhi. This was how people not a part of government interfered in governance during the UPA?" asked Goyal.
"In UPA, how projects were stalled and environment ministry was used is evident in the email. Rahul Gandhi opposed Nirma project and instructed Jayanti Natarajan to not give environmental clearance. He was willing to kill jobs in Gujarat to undermine and to hurt development agenda of Narendra Modi," Goyal added.
The minister also attacked former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, calling him a "mere titular head" who was controlled by the mother-son duo of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.
"Email exchanges between Rahul Gandhi and Jayanthi Natarajan show that all decisions were directly taken by the family and PM Manmohan Singh was just a titular head. Knowledge of Rahul Gandhi was such that he did not know that there was no proposal on Amethi-Rae Bareilly Highway, but he was instructing Jayanthi Natarajan to clear it," he said.
The charges by the BJP, which is trying to retain power in Gujarat, comes on the eve of the final phase of Gujarat Assembly elections. While the voting for 89 seats of Saurashtra and South Gujarat regions took place on Saturday, tomorrow's polling will take place on 93 seats spread across 14 districts in north and central Gujarat.
The counting of votes for all 182 seats will be taken up on December 18.
(With inputs from ANI)
Watch: Congress official emails: "Non-state players" ran the government and overruled Manmohan Singh
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