Only the Congress can provide an effective leadership to people to combat the menace unitedly, Sonia Gandhi said.
Terrorism is the greatest challenge that the country is facing and only Congress can provide an effective leadership to people to combat the menace unitedly, party president Sonia Gandhi said on Monday.
"The government and security forces alone cannot tackle the problem - the people have to unite to fight against these forces. To unite the people, it is very important to provide effective leadership and it is the Congress alone who can take
the lead in this regard," Gandhi told an election rally here.
"Terrorism is not a problem in India alone but is a global phenomena and the main aim of terrorists is to break the sense of security among the people," she said while campaigning for Union Minister Santosh Mohan Dev.
Criticising the BJP's handling of terrorists during the erstwhile NDA rule, Gandhi said even the Parliament was attacked when LK Advani was in charge of the union home ministry.
"BJP and other communal parties who allege that Congress encourages division should remember this...Congress has never allowed secessionist forces to thrive and will never allow it in future," she said.
The people of Assam and the rest of the country have seen the performance of many non-Congress governments and they have
realised what the conditions would be if such a situation repeats, Gandhi claimed.
Praising chief minister Tarun Gogoi, Sonia Gandhi said it was under him that development was ushered into Assam and this
was possible due to Congress governments coming to power both at the Centre and the state.
The Centre, she said, has given "utmost importance" to development of Assam primarily because it is prime minister Manmohan Singh's home constituency. "He (Singh) has a special weakness for development of the state ... The Congress party, too, gave full support to his initiatives."
"Rajiv Gandhi, too, had a special interest in Assam and it was he who initiated the signing of the Assam accord," Gandhi said.
She claimed that Congress has introduced many models to take development to every corner of the society, while the opposition parties have no strong policy for development.
Gandhi's visit to Barak Valley coincided with a 12-hour bandh called by the All Cachar Karimganj Hailakandi Students' Association (ACKHSA) which failed to evoke any response and nearly 30,000 people attended the Congress rally.
The bandh was called to protest against alleged failure of the Congress government to convert metre gauge railway lines to broad gauge in Barak Valley.
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