Rahul Gandhi announces two-pronged strategy to defeat Mayawati-Jan 19, 2011

Rahul Gandhi announces two-pronged strategy to defeat Mayawati

Published: Wednesday, Jan 19, 2011, 2:37 IST

By Deepak Gidwani | Place: Lucknow | Agency: DNA

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has devised a joint strategy to counter the ruling BSP in the 2012 Uttar Pradesh assembly election and he unveiled his political game plan at the two-day state unit co-ordination committee meeting in Lucknow.

Gandhi asked leaders to prepare a “chargesheet” against BSP MLAs, MPs and members in every district on their performance vis a vis public welfare with special focus on utilisation of Central funds.

He also directed the party brass to do their best to shift the blame for price rise on the state government.

“The Centre is certainly not responsible for the increase in prices of vegetables and fruits. In UP, it is the Mayawati government which is responsible for the price hike. It has failed to check hoarding which has led to escalation of prices of essential commodities,” Gandhi said.

“The Centre has taken all possible steps to check the prices of wheat and rice but the cost of fuel is not in the hands of the central government as it is set as per the international crude oil prices,” he said.

“There is no reason for you to be defensive on any issue. The 2G scam has no impact and relevance in remote rural areas. You must go out there and raise issues of local corruption that impact the lives of people there,” he said.

Rahul advised his partymen to run a concerted campaign to highlight the misuse or non-utilisation of thousands of crores of rupees sent by the Centre to UP for centrally-sponsored schemes.

“Gather data about these schemes in every district and expose this [Mayawati] government before the people,” he said.

He asked party members to highlight the atrocities being heaped on backward and Dalits in the state and cited the recent Banda rape case in which a BSP MLA is accused of raping a minor Dalit girl as an example.

He authorised national commission for scheduled Castes chairman PL Punia and Bahraich MP Kamal Kishore “commando” (a Dalit) to focus on boosting the party’s electoral prospects in the 86 reserved constituencies of the state.

“We have to focus on sadak [roads], samasya [people’s problems] and sangathan [party organization] while preparing for the assembly elections,” he said.