Using Ram as a poll plank may have worked for the BJP in the past, but it won't pay dividends to the party in the forthcoming Gujarat Assembly elections.
DUNGARPUR: Using Ram as a poll plank may have worked for the BJP in the past, but it won't pay dividends to the party in the forthcoming Gujarat Assembly elections, a senior Congress leader has said.
"Ploy of provoking people on communal lines may have worked in the past, but it won't work in Gujarat this time. People have now understood the fact that BJP falls back on Ram everytime it runs out of ideas to create a communal divide in the country," Gujarat Seva Dal chief Maulin Vaishnav said.
Vaishnav, also the director of a nationalised bank, was on a visit to Dungarpur district, after the Bank decided to adopt this socio-economically backward district of Rajasthan.
"Chief Minister Narendra Modi blows his own trumphet regarding industrial development he has initiated in the state. In reality, he has allowed only selected five big industrialists to flourish. Others are languishing," he said.
Vaishnav asserted that the party did not require a face to take on Narendra Modi. He said it would be a "collective effort" to combat the "dictatorship" of Modi.
"We are riding on team effort and have many faces. BJP is relying only on one face, which is a symbol of dictatorship in Gujarat, a fact confirmed by Modi's own party colleague and former Gujarat CM Keshubhai Patel in a recent interview."
Vaishnav denied that Congress was indulging in "opportunism" by releasing funds for post-Godhra riots victims when Gujarat elections were just two months away.
"Just because it has done something good now, doesn't mean that it should have done it earlier. Nor is it an indicator of poll opportunism," he said.
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