Modi docks Congress, Sonia on price rise

Abu Road, Nov 29 (UNI) Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today docked the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre for its ''failure in containing price rise and addressing the miseries of poor people''.

Mr Modi, who yesterday began his electioneering for the December 4 Assembly polls in Rajasthan, training guns on the Congress over the issue of terrorism, targeted it for failing to contain the prices of essential commodities and take care of the needs of the poor strata.

The firebrand leader said ''Essential commodities have gone out of the poors' reach, numerous poor families compelled to sleep half-fed or hungry but the Congress and 'Sonia Maa' remained mute spectators to the poors' miseries''.

Mr Modi said the 125-year-old party, during its four-decade rule in the country had failed to do any good to the poor masses. The party wasted its regime in ''mere sloganeering and serving self interests''.

He also touched upon other issues, including terrorism and condemned the Congress for its failure in ensuring appropriate action plan.

He said that the UPA leaders, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee were merely offering lip service and public statements over terrorism.

''Much needed comprehensive strategy and effective steps were not being taken to curb terrorism,'' he said, adding ''They are pointing at links between Pakistan and the terorists involved in the Mumbai attacks and operatives elsewhere in India but taking no effective measures to snap the links and bring to book the culprits.'' Vote bank politics was responsible for the situation, he added.

The Gujarat Chief Minister said that the Congress's 60-year-old vote bank politics needed to be discarded and replaced by development-oriented politics being practiced in the BJP-ruled states, including Gujarat.

Mr Modi also praised Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje for providing good governance and achieving unprecedented development in the state during her five-year term in the office.

He said the Raje Government's achievements on the development front were much greater than the development achieved by the Congress-led governments in 40 years.

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