Ajay Rai compares Arvind Kejriwal, Narendra Modi to Siberian birds

VARANASI: Congress’ Ajay Rai, who is using the outsider-versus-insider issue as his main poll plank for the battle over the Varanasi seat, on Thursday compared rivals Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal with Siberian birds who would disappear from Varanasi after the elections. Rai filed his nomination papers on Thursday.

Local BJP leaders hit back at Rai by raising the old issue of the Congress president’s place of birth. “Was Sonia Gandhi born in Raibareli or Rahul Gandhi in Amethi? The voter of Varanasi considers it an honour that a man of Modi’s stature has come to choose Varanasi as his karmabhoomi. Rai’s charge will fall flat on its face and boomerang,” said Bechan Jaiswal, member of the core team that spearheads BJP election campaign in Varanasi. “Rai himself is from Ghazipur and thus an outsider by his own principle,” he added.

While Rai sought to project Modi as an outsider, senior Congress leader and union commerce minister Anand Sharma repeated his allegation that Modi’s national campaign has been funded by black money. “This election (Varanasi) will be fought at two levels,” Sharma said. “There will be local issues related to the constituency development on one hand and there will be larger national ideological perspective where Congress’s pluralist and tolerance is pitted against the BJP’s narrow vision.”

On the much-debated Gujarat model of development, Sharma asked, “Is this the kind of democratic model he wants to bring to the country? Gujarat is lagging in state debt accumulation, malnutrition and even sanitation, but he is still lying like Joseph Goebbels to make it the truth in the public eye.” Calling Modi an egoist leader who does not consider himself answerable to anyone, Sharma said, “He has never answered a single question in Gujarat Assembly nor participated in any debate during all his terms as chief minister. Reason is that he considers it an insult to answer to someone.” Sharma alleged that Modi has merely picked up points from Congress’ achievement papers and presented them in another format.