Nadia: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi took a dig at the BJP on Monday saying the doors of the Gujarat government were open only for a few industrialists.
He made the remarks after offering prayers at the famous Santram temple here, on the first day of a three-day tour of the poll-bound state.
“(Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji and the BJP talk big about religion, but the doors of the Gujarat government are just open for a few industrialists. They are not open for all, like the doors of this temple,” the Congress leader said.
Gujarat Congress spokesman Manish Doshi had earlier said that his party was “deliberately projected as anti-Hindu” by the BJP and the RSS.
He had said Gandhi’s visit to various temples during his tour was aimed at countering the “hardline Hindutva” campaign of the BJP and the RSS. Gandhi today began the second leg of his poll campaign from central Gujarat.
During his first leg of the three-day ‘Navsarjan Yatra’ in Saurashtra last month, he had visited five temples, including the Dwarkadeesh temple and the hill-top Chotila shrine.
At the Santram temple here, Gandhi interacted with the temple authorities and told a small gathering that the “tallest leader of the Congress”, Mahatma Gandhi, had come to the shrine during the Dandi March in 1930.
“I came to know from the temple management that it does a lot of work in the field of education besides social service. Their doors are open for all whether the poor or the rich,” the Congress vice-president said.
“It should be so because it is our tradition and it is the tradition of our religion,” he said.
The Congress leader is scheduled to visit some more temples in the state.
PTI