Virbhadra Singh will be CM face in Himachal: Rahul Gandhi
Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi kick started campaign in poll-bound Himachal Pradesh on Saturday announcing that incumbent Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh will be the party's chief ministerial candidate.
Addressing a rally at Paddal ground, Gandhi also targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue of unemployment, demonetisation and "hasty" implementation of Goods and Service Tax(GST).
Backing the chief minister, Gandhi said that Virbhadra Singh, 83, has ensured uniform development of the entire hill state and was confident that the Congress party would retain power.
"Virbhadra Singhji, You became chief minister six times and I assure that you would become chief minister for the seventh time also and the entire Congress party stands behind you)," Gandhi said addressing the "Vijay se Vikas ki Aur" rally, four days after a BJP rally at Bilaspur that was addressed by the prime minister.
Taking on the prime minister on the issue of unemployment, Mr Gandhi alleged that the NDA government had failed to fulfill the promise to provide jobs to 2-crore people. "And the ground situation is that 30,000 job seekers are being added every 24 hours but only 450 persons are getting jobs per day while our competitor China is giving jobs to 50,000 persons every day."
"The
hasty
implementation
of
GST
resulted
in
loss
of
30-
lakh
jobs,"
he
alleged,
adding
it
caused
inconvenience
to
traders.
Demonetisation
led
to
a
drop
in
GDP
and
badly
hit
the
common
man,
he
said.
Mocking at the Gujarat model, Gandhi compared the development of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat on different parameters to claim that the hill state fared better.
Referring to the plight of farmers, Gandhi said that maximum suicides are taking place in the BJP-ruled states.
Addressing the rally, Virbhadra Singh said that his government ensured uniform development without any other consideration and said that development would be the main election plank of the party in the upcoming assembly polls.
PTI