CM calls Cong chief just a source of entertainment

Raipur, November 10

Launching a scathing attack on Rahul Gandhi, poll-bound Chhattisgarh’s Chief Minister Raman Singh on Saturday alleged the Congress chief was “sort of an entertainment” for people in the state and his campaign could be detrimental to his own party.

Ahead of the crucial first phase of voting in the state on Monday, Singh said Gandhi does not know anything about Chhattisgarh and his rallies would not help the Congress draw any significant votes.

Singh’s counter-attack came a day after the Congress president, during his election campaign on Friday, accused Singh of indulging in graft and of doing any work only after taking “permission from his 10-15 industrialist friends”. “Rahul does not know anything about Chhattisgarh. People of Chhattisgarh do not take him seriously. He is sort of an entertainment for them,” Singh said.

Singh, who has been Chief Minister of the tribal-dominated state for a record 15 years of its 18-year history, said Gandhi’s presence in the state would not dent poll prospects of the BJP, but might prove detrimental to his own Congress party. While there was no immediate comment from the Congress on the latest jibe at its party chief, the allegations levelled by various political parties have often become personal amid a rising election fever in the country’s political landscape.

While the Congress has been accusing the BJP-led governments of indulging in crony capitalism, Gandhi has launched a campaign centred around these charges for the five poll-bound states, including Chhattisgarh. The BJP has denied these charges and levelled counter-allegations of corruption and crony-capitalism being things of past when the Congress was in power. — PTI