india

Updated: Jan 29, 2019 15:18 IST

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati took a dig on Tuesday at Congress president Rahul Gandhi over his “minimum income guarantee” promise made at a public rally in Chhattisgarh on Monday. Taking a swipe at the Congress president, Mayawati questioned if “this promise also a fake one like Gareebi Hatao’.

Hitting out both at the Congress and ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Mayawati drew a parallel between the promise made by Rahul Gandhi with those made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi before coming to power in 2014.

“Is this promise also a fake one like ‘Gareebi hatao’ and current government’s promises on black money, 15 lakh and achhe din? Both the Congress and the BJP have failed, and proved to be two sides of the same coin,” Mayawati was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Earlier addressing a public rally in Chhattisgarh, Rahul Gandhi had promised that if voted to power in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress government would announce the scheme to ensure minimum income guarantee to all the poor people in the country. He pitched this promise as the main poll plank of the Congress party.

Rahul Gandhi made the announcement while addressing a ‘Kisaan Abhaar Sammelan’ in Raipur to express gratitude to the people of Chhattisgarh following the Congress’s victory in the last assembly election in November 2018. The Congress defeated the BJP in the state, where it was in power for 15 years.

“The Congress-led government is going to give minimum income guarantee. This means, every poor person in India will have a minimum income. This means there will be no hungry, poor people in India,” Rahul Gandhi said.

The announcement by the Congress president only four days ahead of the Narendra Modi government presents interim budget before the Lok Sabha polls likely to be held in April-May this year. The statement also followed the decision by the Modi government to give 10 per cent reservation in jobs and education to the poor among the unreserved, otherwise called the general category, people.

Mayawati earlier this month joined hands with Akhilesh Yadav, the president of the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha elections leaving the Congress out of the grand alliance in the politically significant state. The BSP and the SP decided to field 38 candidates each in Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha.

Following the tie-up between the BSP and the SP, the Congress party appointed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the sister of party president Rahul Gandhi as the general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh East in a move that aimed at galvanising the ground-level workers of the party. Senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia was given the charge of Uttar Pradesh West.

Rahul Gandhi later said that Priyanka Gandhi and Scindia had a specific target of forming the next government led by the Congress in Uttar Pradesh. The state would hold assembly elections in 2022. But before that the Congress faces a stiff task in Uttar Pradesh during the Lok Sabha elections.

With Priyanka Gandhi taking a political plunge ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the parliamentary polls are expected to be a triangular contest in Uttar Pradesh, which is also considered a key state for the BJP’s fortunes at the Centre in the coming months.