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ShareRanchi: The Congress and the BJP today crossed swords over continuing poverty in rural part of the country during high voltage campaigning for the Jharkhand assembly elections.
AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi attacked BJP for its erstwhile 'India Shining' campaign, while the saffron party president Rajnath Singh struck back asking why the Congress had "failed" to eradicate poverty though it ruled the country for five decades.
"For them, India shone for the rich, but your mandate taught them that India was not shining for backwards, dalits, tribals and the poor and elected the government of Manmohan Singh (in 2004), Rahul told an election meeting.
"You also voted the UPA in the May general elections," he added.
Singh, at a press conference when asked to comment on Rahul's statement, said "who is responsible for the plight of the poor? The Congress ruled for 52 years but failed to eradicate poverty."
Gandhi said "when I took a British minister to a village to show the power of the toiling people that moves India's development, the opposition said I was showing him poverty."
"They (opposition) are ashamed of it, but we are not, because we would like to include farmers and hardworking people in the future development of the country," Gandhi said.
Singh, however, countered that the Congress should not 'hoodwink' the people with the 'politics of poverty' and said the poor were hard-pressed because of spiralling prices.
The BJP president sought to know why India still lagged behind when small European countries found places in the club of developed nations in just about two decades.
He said the BJP would give all BPL families 35kg of rice at Rs1 per kilo and salt at 25 paise per kilo per month if voted to power in Jharkhand.
Gandhi said that the Centre had earmarked funds and launched welfare programmes for Jharkhand, but it could be properly implemented only by a like-minded government coming to power.
"We are funding many schemes, but it is the state government which has to implement them, and this can happen only when a government works in tandem with the Centre," Gandhi said.
The BJP-led NDA had ruled Jharkhand for six out of nine years of its creation.
