Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said that the BJP is winning only one seat in Uttar Pradesh. ”Have you heard (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi is winning only one BJP seat of Kyoto (Varanasi) in Uttar Pradesh,” said Gandhi while addressing a joint poll meeting with Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav in Prayagraj in support of INDIA bloc candidate Ujjawal Raman Singh.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said that he will turn Varanasi into Kyoto, a picturesque town in Japan. “The fight is to save the Constitution. The BJP and the RSS are attacking it, and I want to tell them that no power can tear and throw the Constitution away,” Gandhi said while waiving a copy of the Indian Constitution.

Gandhi reiterated the promises made by the Congress and appealed to vote for the party’s candidate. ”We are going to make a law for an MSP of farm produce and we will also provide support to the unemployed youth,” he added.

”We will throw the Agniveer scheme into the garbage and provide recruitment in the armed forces as it used to be done before,” Gandhi said. Speaking before Gandhi, Yadav alleged that the BJP is after people’s lives and the Constitution. ”The BJP put our lives in danger with the Covid vaccine and now wants to destroy the Constitution,” Yadav said.

Yadav promised that jobs will be be provided to the youth after the INDIA bloc government is formed. ”We will take back the Agniveer scheme of recruitment in the armed force and will provide permanent jobs,” Yadav said.

Ujjawal Raman Singh is contesting from the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat on a Congress ticket. He is pitted against BJP’s Neeraj Tripathi. Polling in Allahabad is to be held on May 25 in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha polls.

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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)

A day after he snubbed West Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury for questioning TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee’s loyalty to the INDIA bloc, several posters and hoardings of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge were defaced with ink in front of the party’s state headquarters here on Sunday. Unidentified persons also wrote ‘agent of Trinamool Congress’ on Kharge’s posters and hoardings.

Sources in the Congress said that Chowdhury, who is in his hometown Baharampur, expressed displeasure over the incident and asked party workers to lodge a police complaint, which was registered, and the defaced posters were also removed.

“The incident might have happened on Saturday night. This is the handiwork of the TMC which wants to create differences between senior Congress leaders and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury,” a party leader alleged.

Kharge had on Saturday snubbed Chowdhury while responding to a query on Mamata Banerjee’s comment that if the INDIA bloc forms the government, she would support it from outside, and Chowdhury’s remark that she cannot be trusted and that she might go with the BJP. “Mamata Banerjee is with the alliance. She has recently said that she will join the government. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury will not take the decision. The decision will be taken by me and the high command and those who don’t agree will go out,” Kharge had said.

He had also asserted that Chowdhury is no one to decide on whether Banerjee would be part of the INDIA bloc in the event of the anti-BJP alliance coming to power after the Lok Sabha polls. Chowdhury, while reacting to Kharge’s comments, had said, referring to the TMC supremo, “I cannot speak in favour of someone who wants to finish me and our party in Bengal politically. This is a battle for every Congress worker. I have spoken on their behalf. I don’t want the state Congress to be used for her (Banerjee’s) personal agenda and then finish the organisation.”

“If Kharge ji speaks against my views, I will continue to speak for Congressmen at the grassroots in the state,” he added.

The TMC is contesting the Lok Sabha elections alone in the state, while the Congress and the Left are jointly fighting the polls.

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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)