Sonepat, Haryana:
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi today took a dig at Narendra Modi, without making a reference to the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, by saying the BJP thinks one man can run the country. Addressing farmers in Sonepat in Haryana, who he was meeting to seek suggestions for the Congress' manifesto for the Lok Sabha polls, Mr Gandhi said the BJP thinks power should be centralised, but his party thinks power must be given to the people.
Here are the highlights:
- What I have learnt here from you (farmers) is that I can never learn from bureaucrats.
- We are trying to empower the common man, specially the farmers.
- We will ensure that every citizen in this country has a right to health.
- You will should have an option, your sons should have an option if they want to do farming or not.
- You will should have the same option that others have through service and manufacturing.
- We want to empower farmers so that they have an option of other occupations as well.
- Our politics is about giving you an option and not about giving you an order. That is BJP's work.
- We will ensure dedicated freight corridor and manufacturing corridor for farmers.
- Look at any party, they all talk about corruption. They only give speeches about corruption.
- India is run by Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Everyone gets to vote once in five years.
- Those people who sit in the Vidhan sabha. Who elects them? Who selects them?
- You will think they are selected by you all. but that is not true.
- About 200-300 people select these representatives. Hooda ji, me: we do that.
- Why don't you people get to be a part of it?
- Congress doesn't play politics of caste and religion.
- There should be a day soon when we call for a meeting and I will be seeing fifty per cent women and fifty per cent men here.
- Hindustan main janta ke paas...jaankari aur gyan hain...but System doesn't ask you people. It only tells you.
- You know what is the difference between BJP and us. We approach everyone for an opinion. BJP thinks one man can run the country, they think power should be centralized, but we think power must be given to people.
- The Uttar Pradesh government issues orders one day and stays quiet the next day. They have built the F1 track and it has not been shut down also.
- We want everyone to grow equally. We don't want a part of Hindustan to grow and the other part to stay backward. We want everyone to be happy.
- The senior minister of BJP: Vajpayee ji, Advani ji mocked computers and asked what will happen with computers?
- Pramod Mahajan later claimed credit for bringing in computers.
- Take Sardar Patel ji, they want to take credit for everything.
- The white revolution was done by Congress. BJP in Gujarat says we have done that.
- After few years they will claim credit for FSB, MNREGA and others.