The BJP hit out at Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Ganga’ attack on PM Modi. Union minister Uma Bharti urged Rahul Gandhi not to run away after the assembly elections and come with her to the Ganga to see the cleaning work being done there. She told NDTV: "I urge Rahul Gandhi not to run away to Thailand as he is likely to once the assembly election results are out. He should come with me to the Ganga and if work to clean it has not started, either he can jump into the Ganga or I will.”

She also called Akhilesh Yadav’s SP ‘the enemy of Ganga. She said: “Work is on in four out of five states but the Uttar Pradesh government issued an order to all Ganga districts not to give a no-objection certificate (NoC) to the clean Ganga campaign... I can give you a copy of the order," the minister said, adding, in more advice for Rahul Gandhi, "Either he should throw Akhilesh off his bandwagon, or get off his."

Earlier, Rahul Gandhi had said: “Modiji keval Ganga maa se wade hi nahi karte, balki Ganga maa se sauda bhi karte hain, kahte hain pahle vote do tab kam karenge. (Modi does not only make promises to the Ganga, but even strikes deals with her, saying first vote for me and then I will work). Modi told Maa Ganga that first make him the Prime Minister and then only he will carry out its cleaning works," said Gandhi seeking votes for local party MLA Ajai Rai from Pindara assembly seat under Banaras Lok Sabha constituency.

While attacking Modi for allegedly making "conditional promises" to the people of Uttar Pradesh, Gandhi promised in the same vein if Congress-SP alliance forms government in UP it "will give Rs 20 lakh to youths for starting their own business."

"Modi strikes relationships with the Ganga maa saying he he is beta of Banaras and that Maa Ganga called him to Varanasi," said Rahul and asked, "Does Maa Ganga had only one son and that too from Gujarat?

"Ganga belongs to everyone and not to a single person." Referring to a slew of PM's alleged promises for Varanasi, Rahul said "Modi had promised Metro rail, did people get it?" "Modi talked of making making Benaras a Kyoto city, give each house clean drinking water, fly luxury planes over Ganga and to set up a Bhojpuri film city here," said Rahul asking if the city got any of these things till now despite lapse of over three years since he became the PM.

Accusing the Prime Minister of failing in fulfilling his promise of providing jobs to people, Rahul said he did nothing for the farmers and youths, but "waived loans of liquor baron Vijay Mallya and country s top 50 richest families".

"Modi comes here, gives long speeches, shows dreams to people and asks them to make him Prime Minister, make BJP win the UP assembly elections and only then he would provide jobs to unemployed youth, work for the development of the state," said Rahul.

Exuding confidence that Congress-SP alliance would win the UP assembly elections, Gandhi said the polling in the last five phases has shown that voters favoured Congress-SP alliance while "Modi ji lost his smiles had looked sad as if he has already lost the polls." The Congress vice president further said the Congress-SP alliance will even continue beyond the UP assembly elections.

With inputs from agencies