Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday took a dig at the Congress and challenged the party to appoint a Congress president who was not from the Gandhi family for at least five years, PTI reported. Modi was speaking at a campaign rally in Chhattisgarh’s Ambikapur in the poll-bound state.
Modi said the Congress needs to account for what four generations of the party in power did for the nation. “Let some good leader of Congress outside of the family become the party president for five years, then I will say that [former Prime Minister Jawaharlal] Nehru really created a truly democratic system there,” Modi said.
“If this happens, I will accept that Nehru ji created such a democratic system because of which anyone, [even] a dedicated Congressman outside the family could become the Congress chief,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi, president of the Congress party, is the fourth generation of the family that has entered politics. “The people have disproved that it was the ‘right of only one family’ to speak from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi,” the prime minister added.
Modi criticised the Congress for questioning demonetisation – the move “still rankles” them as the money “stashed under beds and in sacks” was taken away in a single stroke, he said.
The prime minister also applauded the state’s voters of turning out in large numbers during the first phase of polling on November 12. “People of Bastar in Chhattisgarh gave a strong response to Naxals by registering record voting percentage in the first phase,” he said.
The second phase of polling in Chhattisgarh will be held on November 20.
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