Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi
NEW DELHI: Union home minister Amit Shah on Thursday criticised Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, alleging that Gandhi insulted the Chhath Puja festival as he is ignorant of India’s culture since Italy is his “maternal home”.Addressing multiple rallies in Bihar, Shah said the INDIA bloc will be “wiped out” and that voters would “avenge” what he called an “insult to Chhathi Maiyya”. He also referred to an earlier incident where Congress workers in the state allegedly abused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mother.Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had held one of his election meetings in the Muzaffarpur on Wednesday, and alleged that the PM had tried to enact a “drama” by planning to take a dip in the Yamuna at Delhi, on the occasion of Chhath Puja.He had alleged that Modi gave up his plans to take a dip when it came to light that the spot he had chosen was a puddle created with clean, piped water, since the Yamuna was extremely polluted and not fit for a bath.”Rahul baba has said Modi and others who worshipped Chhathi Maiyya were indulging in drama. His maternal roots are in Italy, and hence he has no idea about the country’s culture,” Shah said, as quoted by PTI. He asked voters to press the EVM button on NDA symbols “with such rage that the tremors are felt in Italy”. The home minister accused the Congress and its allies of preventing the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. He said, “thwarting for 70 years” the construction of the temple, which he said had been a matter of struggle “since the times of the Mughals, and continued under the British”.Shah praised the Modi government for developing a new university at Nalanda, saying “no Bakhtiyar Khilji will be able to destroy” it. He also mentioned an ongoing project worth about Rs 850 crore to develop Punaura Dham in Sitamarhi district, which is linked to the birthplace of Goddess Sita. “In two years from now, you will see PM Modi performing the consecration ceremony (pran pratishtha) at Punaura Dham,” he said.At a rally in Nalanda, Shah opened his speech with references to Chanakya and Chandragupta Maurya. He then criticised the previous RJD governments led by Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi, saying Bihar witnessed “over 32,000 kidnappings and 12 major massacres” during their tenure. He said, “Nitish Kumar ended the ‘jungle raj’… but RJD is trying to bring back ‘jungle raj’ in the state with a new face.”Shah rejected claims by Tejashwi Yadav that the NDA would take back money deposited in women’s accounts under welfare schemes. “Nobody can dare to take that money back. RJD leaders must give up this diatribe,” he said.The home minister said that during Nitish Kumar’s time in power, “there has been a 20 per cent drop in murders while dacoities and kidnappings have gone down by 80 per cent”. He added, “We are preparing the youth of Bihar to win medals in the 2036 Olympics that will happen in India.”