It’s not Congress-BJP election, but a casteism-development battle: Amit Shah

GANDHINAGAR: BJP national president Amit Shah on Tuesday claimed that the Gujarat assembly election is not about who will become the chief minister or a fight between two parties but between Congress’ Jativaad (casteism) and Vanshvaad (dynastic rule) and Narendra Modi’s Vikasvaad (development politics).

Shah, while addressing a public rally in Bhavnagar before the filing of nomination papers of Gujarat BJP president Jitu Vaghani, reminded people of the KHAM (Ksharitya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) social engineering of the Congress and said that “the people of Gujarat have to decide whether to choose the Congress which had tried to create a caste divide between 1985 and 1995 by putting the KHAM theory into practice or choose the development and stability provided by the BJP government from 1995 to 2017.”

The KHAM experiment by former Congress Madhavsinh Solanki had resulted in Congress’ largest-ever victory with 149 seats in 1985. However, the social engineering that had excluded the upper castes, particularly Patidars, had led to the party’s exile from power that continues till date.

Shah alleged that the Congress has outsourced its campaign and was indulging in caste-based politics to return to power in Gujarat.

Alleging that the Congress-led UPA government did nothing for Gujarat, Shah said Rahul Gandhi thinks that Gujarat is a tourist spot as he is visiting the state very often.

Unrest in Gujarat Congress
NEW DELHI: Candidate selection has triggered unrest in the Gujarat Congress, with the PCC V-P Satyajit Gaikwad registering his protest with the party high command. Gaikwad, a former national president of Youth Congress, is learnt to be planning to quit the party along with his supporters if the issues are not settled amicably.