Gujarat Elections 2017 | PM Modi resorting to bhashan ka shasan, says Rahul Gandhi

Choosing not to react to the controversy raked in by Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the tweets of his “lieutenant” Salman Nizami, Congress president-elect Rahul Gandhi on Saturday charged Modi of running away from real issues.

Gandhi said that Modi has resorted to “bhashan ka shasan” (the rule of words) and that the PM’s speeches mention no development.

“BJP has its government in Gujarat for 22 years. I will only ask, why is development missing in the Prime Minister’s speeches,” tweeted Gandhi. “I asked 10 questions on Gujarat’s report card but no answers came. No manifesto till the campaign for the first phase of polling ended. So, ab bhashan hi shasan hai (does governance mean mere speeches now),” he tweeted.

Responding to the PM’s repeated charges about the Congress leaders’ elitism, Gandhi, who returned to Ahmedabad after greeting his mother Sonia Gandhi on her 71st birthday, chose to use a normal channel to board the aircraft. 

Commenting on the controversy that erupted over the remarks of suspended Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, who called the PM a “neech aadmi”, Gandhi said at a rally at Harji in Patan district that the BJP now stands exposed on key electoral issues like the Narmada water, Other Backward Castes (OBC) and development in 22 years of BJP rule in Gujarat.

“The truth eventually comes out. Modiji spoke about the water in Narmada, and the water never reached villages and went to the Tata Nano factory. Then after a few days, he said he will focus on the issue of OBCs, which, too did not work,” said Gandhi.