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Updated: Jan 29, 2019 19:07 IST

Congress president Rahul Gandhi continued with his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday and said the NDA government is only catering to the rich without paying any heed to the needs of the poor.

“Modi gives maximum income guarantee to the rich, we give minimum income guarantee to the poor,” Gandhi said during a public rally in Kerala’s Kochi. The Congress president had on Monday said his party would guarantee minimum income for all the poor of the country if it formed the government at the Centre after the 2019 polls.

Gandhi, who met Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar earlier in the day, said the former defence minister told him he had nothing to do with the new Rafale deal. Parrikar has been unwell for the past several months.

Rahul Gandhi’s meeting with Parrikar came less than 24 hours after the Congress chief targeted PM Modi over Rafale deal with a jibe that the Goa CM has “secrets” that “give him power over the PM”.

In a reference to the violence in Kerala over the entry of women in Sabarimala temple, Gandhi targeted both the BJP and the Left front government in Kerala. “The Congress respects the rights of the women and traditions of the state but doesn’t agree with the cycle of violence unleashed by the CPM and BJP,” he said.

Follow live updates here: Manohar Parrikar said today that he had nothing to do with new Rafale deal, says Congress chief

During his visit to Kerala this week, PM Modi had attacked the Left front government for attacking the cultural ethos of the state with its stand on the entry of women in Sabarimala.

“Cultural ethos of Kerala are under attack from the party in power. People can see the manner in which the communist government is disrespecting all aspects of state’s culture. I don’t understand why they are targeting our culture which has stood the test of time,” he added.

The PM had said that nothing separates the Congress-led UDF from the Left in Kerala. “LDF and UDF are the same. The Congress says one thing in Delhi and one in Kerala,” Modi said.

Kerala has witnessed protests since the Supreme Court order to open the doors of the Sabarimala shrine to women of all ages, overturning a traditional ban on women of childbearing age from entering the temple.

Female devotees aged between 10 and 50 had for decades been barred from the shrine on grounds that the presiding deity is a celibate, and the court ruling enraged traditionalists in Kerala. The LDF government of chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said it was determined to uphold the court verdict.