Amit Shah Slams Priyanka Gandhi For Calling Amethi, Raebareli "Family Seats"

Union Home Minister Amit Shah at an election rally here on Friday attacked Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi for calling Raebareli a "family seat", and said it's not a seat of any family but that of the people.

Mr Shah made a scathing attack on the Congress for turning down invitations for Ram Mandir's 'Pran Pratishtha' in Ayodhya and said if the Congress came to power, they would put the "Ayodhya lock" in the temple again.

Mr Shah held a public meeting in Daulatpur of the Unchahar assembly constituency. During the rally, rebel SP MLA from Unchahar, Manoj Kumar Pandey joined the BJP and sat beside Shah on the stage.

"Congress says that Ram temple has not been consecrated properly. If the INDI alliance comes, they will put the 'Babri lock' on Ram temple again", he said.

Mr Shah also called the INDIA bloc a family-based alliance.

"Lalu (Prasad Yadav) wants to make his son the chief minister, Mamata (Banerjee) wants her nephew to be the chief minister and Sonia Gandhi wants to make her son the prime minister," Mr Shah said.

"She (Priyanka Gandhi) says that Raebareli and Amethi are the seats of my family.

"I say that this seat does not belong to any family. This is the seat of poor youths of both districts. Whoever the people of Rae Bareli and Amethi want will go to the Parliament. This is democracy, family has no seat," he said.

With Smriti Irani winning in Amethi and Dinesh Pratap Singh in Raebareli, both the seats are going to go to the BJP, Mr Shah said.

"The Congress party was sitting on Article 370. (Prime Minister) Modi ended it. Congress says that we will bring back Article 370. Modi ji has ended terrorism from the country," he said.

"On one hand, there is Narendra Modi, who is not accused of (scam of) four annas despite being the chief minister and prime minister for 23 years," Mr Shah said.

The Union home minister said that PM Modi will put in jail all those who have committed corruption.

There was no collector office in the parliamentary constituency which they call the family seat for 70 years, Mr Shah said, adding that the Yogi Adityanath government along with Smriti Irani laid the foundation stone of the collector office in 2018.

Mr Shah said that BJP candidate Singh will be among the people 24 hours. "I take a guarantee that if Dinesh Pratap is not seen in your good or bad times, it is my responsibility," he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)