Shah takes a swipe at Cong, Rahul

Miffed over endless criticism on land bill, BJP president Amit Shah on Friday launched a scathing attack on Congress, asking it to search for its “missing leader”—a jibe at Rahul Gandhi—instead of trying to rake up “non-issues and fictional issues”.

Addressing the party National Executive for the first time since becoming BJP president last August,  Shah said: “The Opposition is desperate, hopeless and directionless. They should stop finding faults and shortcomings that do not exist. If they have to find something, they should try to find their leader. Instead of raising non-issues and fictional issues, they should find out where their leader is”.

Shah’s jibe was aimed at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who is on an extended leave for what his Congress party said was focussing on party work. It was meant to counter the Opposition “deliberately spreading misgivings” about the new land acquisition bill.   
Rahul is expected to show up soon, as his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi has stated recently.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP patriarch L K Advani and Arun Jaitley shared the dais with Shah.

Senior ministers Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, M Venkaiah Naidu and Nitin Gadkari, and as well as party office-bearers, chief ministers and state leaders were also present on the opening day of the National Executive meeting at Lalit Ashok Hotel.

Shah's remark in his address, that Bihar has slipped into “Jungle Raj-II” under JD-U Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, also set the tone of campaigning for the Assembly polls there.

In the previous elections in 2010, the mandate was for the BJP-JD-U combine as they fought the polls together. However, the JD-U had walked out of the NDA less than two years ago protesting the move to elevate Modi—who had faced charges of failing to check the Godhra communal riots as Gujarat chief minister—as its 2014 Lok Sabha poll mascot.

“The JD-U ditched the mandate and betrayed the people. The people are very angry and upset,” Union minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters on while talking about Shah’s speech, delivered in a closed-door meeting. Now, people want a new BJP-led government, he quoted Shah as saying.
The BJP chief is going to address a gathering of party workers on April 14 in Patna before setting the house in order to warm up the cadre early for the polls.

Though 2015 did not provide a big-bang start to the BJP as it was handed an embarrassing defeat in the Delhi Assembly polls, the Bihar battle will test the real strength of the Modi-Shah combine, given the fact that the opposition—the JD-U, the RJD, the SP, the JD-S and the INLD—are coming together to check the saffron surge.

The Modi wave that put the NDA in power at the Centre had fuelled the party to governments in Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir.

Lauding the prime minister for doing exceptionally well in the 10 months in power by offering scam-free good governance with transparency, Shah, said the Modi government has arrived and would remain for another 10-20 years to uplift the country. 

Windfall gains in the coal and spectrum auctions, revival of investor confidence, ending policy paralysis and changed global view about the country were some of the Modi government’s achievement in contrast with the previous UPA regime led by Manmohan Singh, said Shah.

Reiterating that the land acquisition bill was not anti-farmer, Shah recalled that it was the Modi government that had successfully pushed at the WTO farmers’ interest of getting minimum support price for foodgrain despite the fact that the UPA government had succumbed to global pressure and would have gotten rid of it by 2016.  

He also welcomed Maharashtra and Haryana for banning cow slaughter—a Hindutva agenda dear to the RSS, the party's ideological mentor.
DH News Service