Congress attacks Modi for selling false dreams to the people
Sonia listed the social welfare schemes that were started during the previous Congress-led UPA dispensation. She said NDA govt was launching same schemes with different names.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi launched a scathing attack on the BJP-led NDA government, saying that it was selling "false dreams" to the people in the country.
"We did so much work but they (the BJP) laid a trap and the people fell into it. Our achievements were sidelined and the people who sold false dreams marched past us," Sonia said, addressing a national convention of the party's women's wing in Delhi on Wednesday.
Noting that "winning and losing are part of life", Sonia told around 8,000 Mahila Congress delegates that the Congress party will bounce back if they work together.
"We have to become each others' voice and strengthen the Congress. If we work together, I am sure the day is not far away when the Congress will be at its best again," she said at the convention to mark the 70th birth anniversary of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Sonia listed the social welfare schemes that were started during the previous Congress-led UPA dispensation. "Those who have come to power are presenting a different picture before the people due to their old habit. But the Congress has never compromised on its principles.
They are naming the same schemes that were started by the UPA," she said. The Congress president asserted that the party will put pressure on the government to pass the Women's Reservation Bill at the earliest.
Party vice-president Rahul Gandhi highlighted the difference in the approach of the BJP and the Congress on the issue of women empowerment. "In their thinking, Goddesses should be worshipped but women should not be empowered. In their view, women should not come out of homes. Our thinking is that they should come out of homes, run businesses. We want their empowerment... you have to fight not only a battle of power but a battle of ideologies," he said.
Later, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, who had earlier taken a jibe at Narendra Modi terming him a "chaiwala", said that women power could force the PM to go back to Gandhinagar and then could drive him to the sea. "If you bring women who are active in public life into the Congress, Modiji will have to go to Gandhinagar by tomorrow and then we will drive him to the seashore," Aiyar said.
The Congress leader listed the UPA's failure in implementing Panchayati Raj policies as one of the reasons behind the Congress poll debacle.
Later in the day, Sonia expressed concern over rising communal violence in the country. "Rajivji had begun sadbhawna yatras a few days before his martyrdom. I remember as communal incidents are taking place in many parts of the country today, similar communal and caste incidents were happening then," she said.