Bhopal: The Congress has promised to open gaushalas in every Madhya Pradesh village and build the Rampath, the mythological route undertaken by Lord Ram during his stint in the state, but according to leader Digvijaya Singh, it has nothing to do with the BJP or its own efforts to push “soft Hindutva”.
Refuting speculations of a competitive cow politics bid, Singh, who is Congress’ co-ordination committee chairman, said the party is only renewing the Gau Seva Aayog policies of his tenure.
When asked about the party’s interest to venture into religion like the BJP, Singh was quick to reject the analogy, and said, “Who says they are religious? They aren’t.”
“Cows roam around hungry, but the so-called gaubhakts are busy extorting money” claimed the former Chief Minister.
Earlier, MPCC president Kamal Nath had alleged that chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has forgotten his promise of developing the Rampath, which he made 12 years ago.
The Congress also announced a Rampath Gaman Yatra from September 21, which will begin from Chitrakoot and cover Shahdol, Anuppur, Rewa, Satna, Panna and Chhatarpur.
Countering the BJP’s allegations of destroying large portions of reserved grazing lands during his tenure, Singh said, “At that time, 7.5% of a land in every village was reserved for grazing, but due to large numbers of encroachments he had reduced it to 2.5% and released the remaining five per cent for the landless poor.”
Meanwhile, referring to his ten-year term in power, Singh openly dared the CM to level at least a single charge of corruption against him, and accused the BJP of baselessly calling him an ‘anti-national’.
“On the contrary, I have been openly accusing Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his family of gross corruption in Vyapam scam and others,” he added.
While asking the Centre to lower excise duties and VAT levied on petrol and diesel to pre-2004 levels, Singh alleged that the government has earned Rs 11 lakh crore by hiking the excise duty on petrol by 115% and by 330% on diesel.
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