Congress Failed As Effective Opposition to BJP, Says Former MP Uma Bharti

Khajuraho: Claiming that the country was witnessing a sweeping wave against the Congress, Union minister Uma Bharti on Friday said the grand old party had failed to play the role of an effective opposition.

Addressing public rallies in Khajuraho, Bharti claimed the Congress neither put up a fight for the public nor learnt to struggle on the roads.

The former MP chief minister challenged party chief Rahul Gandhi, his mother Sonia Gandhi, and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to take to the streets and fight the BJP.

At a rally in Ghuwara, Bharti claimed Madhya Pradesh lost its sheen since the BJP was removed from power. Former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had worked efficiently to change the face of the Bundelkhand region, she claimed. The development work in the region will advance once Prime Minister Narendra Modi returns to power, she added.

The Jhansi MP claimed that the government under Modi had managed to rein in both corruption and inflation for the first time in the country, as a result of which they were not poll issues. The opposition’s only agenda now is to remove Modi, she said.

Modi’s growing acceptability had made the opposition parties apprehensive of their future, she added. The minister claimed that India would be a superpower and the world would acknowledge its credence if Modi remained in power for 15 years.

Slamming the BSP and SP coalition in Bundelkhand, Bharti said the “gathjod” (pairing) is done with the knot dipped in turmeric. However, the coalition is made of poison, she said.

“The leaders are singing a tune of coalition, but their workers were upset,” she claimed Bharti.

Bharti said that the Congress’s situation is even worse as parties like the Trinamool Congress, SP, BSP and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) are unwilling to align with it. Criticising Gandhi was taking frequent “suit-boot” jibes at Modi, she said his party was unhappy with a poor family’s son wearing suits as it wanted the poor to always stay helpless.

“Those in power have responsibilities and the opposition has them too, but the Congress never lived up to its responsibilities,” she claimed, adding that the Lok Sabha elections would make Congress leaders realise their true worth.