Bharatiya Janata Party National President Amit Shah on Monday accused three generations of the Congress party of insulting Gujarat, as he sounded the poll bugle for his party in the state, PTI reported. Assembly elections will be held in Gujarat later this year.

Shah also asked Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi to replace his “Italian glasses” with “Gujarati glasses” to be able to see the development in the state under the BJP government. He said the Congress leader had missed the work done in Gujarat, including the establishment of an Aiims, an international airport in Rajkot and the allocation of homes to the urban poor.

Advertisement

“Rahul Gandhi comes here and seeks answers from us about what the BJP has done for the state,” Shah said, after paying his tributes to late Congress leader and freedom fighter Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at his ancestral home in Karamsad. “We are seeking an answer from you for the injustices that three generations of your rule did to us.”

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had toured Gujarat last week.

Shah said the first generation of Congress had “insulted Sardar Patel by not giving him his due recognition and a Bharat Ratna”. “Prime Minister Indira Gandhi did injustice to Morarji Desai, and the third generation of [Congress leaders] Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gadhi have done injustice to Narendra Modi. Gujarat seeks an answer for that.”

Advertisement

During his tour of the state last week, Rahul Gandhi had said that the BJP government in Gujarat was controlled by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Centre. “These days, Gujarat’s government is run by a remote control,” the Congress scion had said.

Shah listed the BJP’s achievements in Gujarat and said, “In the upcoming Assembly elections, the people of the state will make fun of those who mock Gujarat’s development model.”