Varanasi/Chandauli/Mirzapur, March 20 (IANS) Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Wednesday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP for describing the arrest of absconding PNB fraud case accused Nirav Modi in London as an achievement, asking who let him flee.
"Is it an achievement? Who let them escape from the country?" she told media in Chandauli after visiting the family of Awadhesh Yadav, one of the 40 CRPF troopers killed in the February 14 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama.
She said that her visit was not political. "...I had spoken to the father of the trooper some days after the attack. He had said to me that 'you people come as we want to meet you'. Thus I had come. My visit to his house is not connected to politics."
In the last leg of her three-day, 140-km-long poll campaign on the Ganga river from Prayagraj to Varanasi on a special motorboat, Gandhi, the Congress in-charge for eastern Uttar Pradesh, also met the family members of CRPF troopers Vishal Pandey and Ramesh Yadav who were also among the killed.
Asked about her river ride campaign, she said, "It felt nice. And I feel that the organisation will be strengthened here and people will come to know that we believe in strong and new kind of politics."
Asked when she is planning to kick off the second part of her Lok Sabha campaign, she said it will be "soon after Holi".
Before going to Chandauli, Gandhi offered prayers at the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi - Modi's the Lok Sabha constituency - for over half an hour.
It was her fourth temple visit since March 18, when she kicked off her river ride from Prayagraj.
On Monday, she visited the famous Hanuman Mandir in Prayagraj, followed by trips to the Sita Samahit Sthal temple in Bhadohi's Sitamarhi and the Vindhyavashini temple in Vindhyachal on the second day of her campaign. She also offered a chadar at Kantit Sharif dargah on Tuesday.
She had arrived at the Vishwanath temple after deboarding from the motorboat at Dashavamedh ghat in Varanasi.
Reaching Ramnagar village, the ancestral village of late Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, in Varanasi via road from Chunar in Mirzapur, where she had made a night halt on Tuesday, Gandhi then went by boat to Assi ghat where she held discussions with the fishermen community.
She also paid floral tributes to the former Prime Minister at Shastri Chowk and visited his residence.
A minor scuffle broke out between Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party workers after the latter raised pro-Modi slogans.
Gandhi later condemned the violence.
"When I was coming to Varanasi, few people raised slogans for the BJP... then people slapped them. We don't believe in such kind of politics. The Congress workers had been beaten by the Britishers. We took all the pain and didn't raise our hand (in return) but only tried to bring the truth," she said.
She also accused Modi of not fulfilling any of the eight promises made to the people of the city, citing the BJP's manifesto for Varanasi in 2014.
"This politics of advertisements is easy and it can be done by anyone," she said.
Gandhi, before leaving Chunar in the morning, had also accused the BJP of systematically attacking every democratic institution in the country and advised the Prime Minister to "stop thinking that people are fools and understand that they see through all his antics".
She also said that she was not afraid.
"Even if anything is done, and we are harassed, we will not feel afraid. We will continue our fight against them. The more we are harassed, the stronger will be our fight," she said.
Gandhi, who was followed by Congress workers raising slogans like "Gali gali me shor hai, chowkidar chor hai" and "Dahan karne Modi ki Lanka, aa gai behen Priyanka", also seem to have struck a chord with locals, many of whom who pointed out her resemblance to her grandmother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Sanjay Kumar said, "Her arrival augurs a change. People are looking for a new ideology. Now people want to get away from the politics of temple and mosque."
"We have felt helpless in the last five years, we feel cheated by the government," he added.
Shahnawaz told IANS, "The BJP has not lived up to our expectations. We see a hope in Priyanka Gandhi and the Congress."
(Anand Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in)
--IANS
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